Today, for instance, women of 184 SHGs in the Barrabazar Block have managed to build a collective corpus fund of one crore ninety lakh rupees in the bank – no small feat for those who have spent the greater part of their lives living below the poverty line. But with the money coming in another critical concern started plaguing them: As illiterate or semi-literate women, how were they to manage their earnings? How were they to understand the workings of a bank? How were they to sign cheques or deposit cash if they couldn’t read, write or recognise numbers?

Says Sujala Murmu, 35, of village Tuima Baradi, “We feared that we might be cheated. We were making payments, takings loans, paying interest to the bank – all blindly, on trust. This concerned us greatly. We wanted to learn to read and write. To know the numbers.”

Literacy has never been strong around these parts – even the 2011 Census gives Purulia an average literacy rate of 65.38. The female literacy rate is a dismal 51.29 compared to a male literacy rate of 78.85. These SHG women worked hard, had the money, but something was still holding them back. “I am illiterate. Will I be able to participate in the meetings properly? How will I speak in front of strangers?” – these were Sadmoni Hembram’s first thoughts as she was elected to represent the women SHG members of her tribal village, which comes under the Sabuj Sathi Nari Shakti Sangha (SSNSS) Federation. And like this 39-year-old from Tilaboni village, who cringed at the thought that she would end up making a fool of herself, there were many across the district suffering from self-doubt.

That’s when Pradan stepped in and initiated a literacy programme, under which village-level Functional Literacy Centres were set up with a focus on adult literacy. It was launched in June 2009 in Barrabazar, Bagmundi and Kashipur blocks, with the support of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT).

Despite a laborious day working in the fields, managing their household chores and collecting firewood from the forest for fuel and for sale, Sujala, Sadmoni, and 2,413 women in 108 centres, religiously attend class. As a result, they can now read and write in Bangla and do basic mathematics. “The learners are a mix of Other Backward Class (OBC), Scheduled Caste (SC) and tribal women. Primarily engaged in agriculture and wage work, they belong to varied age groups, from adolescence to late sixties. As per a baseline survey conducted by us, more than 75 per cent of these women were illiterate or could only sign their name and over 70 per cent belonged to BPL families,” informs Kuntalika Khumbakar, Integrator (state unit), Pradan.

The idea has been to impart literacy and numeral ability to women to make their organisations more relevant for them. “At the same time, we expected the enlightened women to help their respective groups in ensuring greater participation and transparency, adds Khumbakar. That’s exactly what happened.

Take Baramani Maji, 33, the coordinator of Tuima Baradi village. Herself a Class Nine dropout, she is now taking classes for the illiterate women of her SHG, Turla Utnaoi Mahila Samity. She says, “Turla Utnaoi is ‘Alchiki’, meaning ‘for benefit of women’ and I feel that literacy is very useful for all of us. First, I learnt myself; now I teach the women in my group.”

To select teachers for the literacy centres, Pradan conducted a written test. According to Sourangshu Banerjee, Project Executive of Pradan’s Adult Functional Literary Centre Project, the minimum qualification was matriculation. “We found women teachers for all centres in Barrabazar but in Bagmundi block the literacy rate amongst women was so poor that we got only male teachers,” he informs.

Like Baramani Maji, Gurubani Mandi was selected to teach. “I get a salary of Rs 1,200 (US$1=Rs 53) per month and I teach Bengali and mathematics,” she says. Teaching at the centres is a continuous process. The women carry on their studies month after month in phases. Camps are also held in the homes of the teachers or selected places for slow learners.

“Once the basics are through, in the second phase, the women learn to handle calculators, read newspapers and do paragraph writing. They are taught to fill forms as well. So our focus remains functional learning,” points out Banerjee.  For training and consulting for this project, Pradan has tied up with Delhi-based women’s resource centre Jagori and Nirantar that empowers women through education.

Murmu started as a student six months ago in her Tuima Baradi village. “Now I know no one can fool me. I understand all the transactions being made by my SHG. I can speak, read and write in Bengali. I have also learnt to do ‘plus’ (addition) and ‘minus’ (subtraction). I am very proud of my abilities. The added advantage is that I can help my children with their schoolwork and maintain family accounts. Earlier, I could not even count!” she says.

This basic education has certainly enabled the women to understand money management better. And following the computerisation of their business model, they are able to properly deal with the computer ‘bandhus’ (friends) and ‘munshis’ (accountants). All the 184 SHGs under Barrabazar block have a central computerised accounting system under which the women drop their transaction slips into a box, which is collected by a computer ‘bandhu’, who takes them to the computer centre where the computer ‘munshi’ creates computerised balance sheets. These are delivered back to the SHGs by the computer ‘bandhus’. Explains Maji, “We pay for the sheets and get accounting details, interest calculations, payments, everything on hand. It was necessary that we learnt how to read and write for this.”

But the women don’t plan to depend on them for long. Elaborates Maji, “I am eager to learn how to use the computer. We want to do the work of computer ‘bandhu’ and ‘munshi’ ourselves. This will be the next step for us.”

It’s obvious that the literacy programme is gradually strengthening women’s leadership abilities and capacities, which will have a long-term impact on the larger processes of development and governance. Social change is also inevitable. Already through plays, prose and poetry recitations and talks, issues like domestic violence, women trafficking and child marriage are being discussed openly.

Most importantly, the confidence crisis and self-doubt has completely vanished. At the ‘mahaadhiveshan’, or mass meeting, of the two umbrella SHG Federations in the district, held in the Barrabazar and Jhalda blocks of Purulia last month, voices of women like Sadmoni Hembram were heard loud and clear. “Today, I can address the Federation gathering with confidence, detailing our achievements with eloquence in front of the Block Development Officer (BDO) and other dignitaries,” says a proud Hembram.

Education and economic empowerment has made a world of difference to Purulia’s women. Now, it’s the turn of the new generation. Mothers are keen to transfer their prosperity and teachings to their daughters. Here’s how Radhika Murmu, 30, puts it, “I have discovered a new interest after I learnt to read and write – that of reading my daughter’s textbooks to her. She will move forward and do much better in life.”

(© Women’s Feature Service)

 I was put into school at age five, and a year later was witness to the end of colonial rule – and also the trauma of Partition. I have no strong memories of childhood, but I clearly recall an occasion in 1946, when riots broke out in Old Delhi and a group of rioters told us children to return home since there was going to be trouble in our area. By August 1947, there was mayhem in the streets. My brother and sister literally ‘witnessed’ a killing as a group of three Muslim men ran towards a police station for shelter. Two got there, the third didn’t; the terror of that killing changed my sister from a devil-may-care child to a fearful, always-looking-over-her-shoulder kind of girl who never recovered from the shock of that murder. A routine illness with high fever had me crying, “Why are the Hindus and Muslims killing each other?” in my delirium. We locked ourselves inside the house in the curfew-bound city as it burnt, our days interspersed with stories of trains full of bodies going across the Punjab, both ways, leaving behind a terrifying memory that resurfaced in the 1984 anti-Sikh carnage inDelhi. When schools reopened, the new girl in my class, who became my ‘best’ friend, had walked across the ‘border’ with her family, so one got a first-hand account of the enormous human misery that accompanied the birth of the nation-state. One unhinged and broken-down maths teacher who had come from Lahore strayed into our school, borderless and gateless as it was, intermittently solving maths problems in the air muttering to himself, weeping at the same time, exclaiming, “Ma, main kadi na Pindi javan” (Mother, I’ll never go to [Rawalpindi).

 That sense of living through tumultuous times was dramatically heightened with the assassination of Gandhiji. At six-and-a-half years, my only memories are of every single person in our neighbourhood instinctively rushing out of the house and standing in shocked little clusters as they tried to register the meaning of the news; and next morning everyone going to Kingsway – renamed Rajpath later to suit the new republic of India – to ‘see’ the funeral procession of the man whom all his political compatriots had, in a sense, betrayed. Then, when he was broken in spirit but still fighting to hold on to a vision of the subcontinent with easily crossable borders and rights for the minorities in the new nation-states, gunned down by a Hindu fanatic. With people in the hundreds milling about the India Gate lawns, I could see nothing till my father placed me on top of a parked car so that I, too, could partake of the collective grief of the people.

 Perhaps it was all this that led me inexorably towards history, the only subject I had ever wanted to ‘study’ in my life. My school was in tents and shifted from being housed in a church building to tents onNorth Avenue, aptly calledNaveenBharatHigh School, located finally onMathura Roadas theDelhiPublic School. The grounds around us were dotted with derelict monuments, graves and mausoleums, not for from the beautiful Humayun’s Tomb. One of these fairly well-preserved tombs on our premises became the school dispensary! History was so all around me, so much a part of the bicycle rides to school and back, so much a part of the bicycle rides to school and back, so much a part of our everyday wanderings that it became the centre of my being, the anchor of my childhood, propelling me to study it later in life even though it seemed so difficult to pursue. It was not offered as a main subject in my undergrad course in Bangalore (where we had moved after my father retired), and not taught at all the MA level as all humanities and social science subjects were allocated to Mysore in the crazy distribution of departments between Bangalore and Mysore in the early 1960s. Mysore was just ninety miles away, but too expensive to go to as a residential student, so I settled down to a law course in Bangalore and a simultaneous MA in history at Banaras Hindu University as a ‘private’ student, studying from a syllabus sent to me by bookshops in Banaras, plus those borrowed from sundry libraries in Bangalore, including that of the famous Mythic Society. The entire family was pressed into service to help me with my double load – older members, including my parents, making notes; younger ones accompanying me on our bikes to the libraries in search of books.

 I got through somehow, though the course was as dull as hell, with no social history and, of course, no gender; yet it was all worth it when I got a job inDelhias a teacher at Miranda House. This was where I had desperately wanted to do the history honours course, but had not been able to. Miranda House, where I taught history for some forty-odd years, was the anchor of my adult life: it was here that I really learnt my history, teaching it to others, sometimes only barely ahead of them in the early years; and it was here that I learnt my politics from irreverent and unruly teachers famous for throwing out principals, and challenged in turn by irrepressible students.

 (Excerpted from Making A Difference: Memoirs From The Women’s Movement In India, Edited by Ritu Menon; Published by Women Unlimited; Pp: 386 Price: Rs 350(Softback)

 (© Women’s Feature Service)

 Generally, the flood-ravaged districts of easternBiharpresent a scenario of abject poverty and poor development. But Dharhara is an exception. Located about 20 kilometres from the district headquarters ofBhagalpur, this village is one of the greenest pockets of the region. And that’s not all. Unlike elsewhere, for years now girls in this village have been welcomed into the world in the most novel way: By the local community planting at least 10 fruit trees – traditionally mango – in celebration. New daughters here are treated as avatars of Goddess Lakshmi and stand to inherit these fruit trees as they grow up.

 Owing to the tradition, this green village – which is surrounded by the riverGangato the south and the unpredictable river Kosi to the north-east – is today nestled in the midst of more than 20,000 fruit-bearing trees. Sukriti, the young daughter of the village pradhan, Parmanand Singh, says, “Even as the world is frantically discussing how to deal with issues like sex selective abortions, global warming and the carbon footprint, planting trees when girls are born is our simple solution to all these complicated problems.”

 In the highly prejudiced Bihari society, where girls are generally seen as a financial ‘bojh’ (burden) on the family, dowry deaths that were once so common here no longer make the news. Planting trees to celebrate the birth of a girl child is essentially a move to build an asset base for her, which can eventually be utilised by the family to finance her education and future development. Former pradhan, Pramod Singh, puts it this way, “She inherits the trees and over the years the fruit not only helps support her family it also helps them bear the expenses of her wedding. We plant the trees at birth because as our girls grow up, so do the trees.”

 Pramod had planted 10 mango trees about 12 years ago when his daughter, Niti, was born. Niti now goes to school and neither her father nor other family members consider her school fees a burden since the money comes from selling the fruit from her trees. Of course her very traditional mother, Rita Devi, has taken to planning for her marriage already and sees Niti’s trees as an asset in that context.

 The unfortunate social practice of dowry may take many more years, or even generations, to overcome, but Madhurani, 20, who got married a couple of years back and is a proud mother of a three-month-old daughter, chooses to be optimistic, “Of course we know we cannot completely remove the practice of dowry from our social system, but at least having some assets in their name have given our girls and their families a better life.”

 Adds Gul Afsan, an activist with the NGO, ‘Her Initiative’, which works for the empowerment of poor women through entrepreneurship, “Although the purpose of planting these trees is to build an asset for the future of local girls, it has also helped them develop a sense of ownership – rare among women of this region.”

 For now, the 8,000 villagers of Dharhara, including scores of young girls, are enjoying the fruits of their labour. InBhagalpur, a district well-known for mangoes, a tree takes around four to five years to mature and then, with some care, they start yielding bumper crops every season. While the greater part of the produce is sold, some of it is kept aside for the children to enjoy. Says Nirmala Devi, a mother of three, “My daughters love to eat mangoes and I don’t stop them since it’s good for their health.”

 Planting mango is also profitable because once the trees become old they can be felled for wood, which is in great demand in the low-cost furniture market. “We cut the trees over a period of several years for the wood and all the furniture that is customarily presented to girls during marriage is made from this,” adds Nirmala.

 Nivedita Singh, 20, who recently got married to a schoolteacher working in a nearby village, explains, “Another reason for this trend is that the amount of labour needed to work in orchards is much less. One only needs to be patient for a few initial years and then it only gets better.” Her parents, too, did not have to worry about money for her education or marriage, as her trees were there to support them.

 These trees have also impacted cultivation patterns in this region. Notes Parmanand Singh, “People in our village have been tilling land as a means of livelihood for generations. But, of late, there has been a shift from conventional farming to fruit tree plantation, as it pays better.”

 While the mango is still the preferred tree for fruit plantation, it’s not always easy to maintain and sometimes they are not cost-effective either. Therefore, many farmers here are now opting for guavas, litchis and papayas since they are cheaper to grow and take less time to mature.

 Shatrughan Singh, an octogenarian, has planted more than 600 trees in Dharhara for his daughters, granddaughters and other village girls. Most of his trees are mango, but even he has taken to planting litchis over the past few years. His daughters are now married, and his two granddaughters, Neha and Nisha, go to school. Both the girls are excited at the prospect of owning 20 trees among them once they grow up.

 Trees for girls is an innovative practice and one that can potentially check the decline inBihar’s child sex ratio, if the idea catches on in other parts of the state. According to the 2011 Census, at 933, the state’s child sex ratio may be better than the national average of 914, but it has dropped sharply from the figure of 981 that the state had registered 30 years ago.

 The success story of Dharhara has even caught the attention of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who has visited the village to plant trees and ensure that a girls’ school is built there. During a public meeting in the village, some years ago, he said that the Dharhara residents’ age-old practice of planting trees to mark the birth of girl child is worth emulating at a time when the gender ratio in the country has been on the decline. He added that local people have, in their own novel way, addressed two concerns with this one move: Environmental conservation and gender justice.

 Treat the girl child as a blessing and trees as bank deposits – that’s the message from this tiny village.

 (© Women’s Feature Service)

Ends                                                                                                

Girl Child\Activism                                                                   WFS REF NO. INDL509

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]]> http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/india-greeting-every-new-born-daughter-with-fruit-trees-saadia-azim/feed/ 0 http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/india-for-bundelkhands-tribal-women-muddy-water-at-3-am-aditi-bishnoi/ http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/india-for-bundelkhands-tribal-women-muddy-water-at-3-am-aditi-bishnoi/#comments Tue, 22 May 2012 13:07:01 +0000 India Current Affairs http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/?p=118862  It’s that time of the year when everyone in northIndiais gearing up for the severe summer. For some, it’s the season to stay indoors and gorge on mangoes, but for others, particularly Bundelkhand’s Sahariya tribal women like Sunita and Dhiru, it signifies only one thing: Long days and sleepless nights chasing after precious water.

 Being Sahariya women, poverty and discrimination at every turn is no new experience for them. But as the hot days of April slowly give way to the punishing heat of May and June, turning the entire rural landscape brown and barren, life becomes truly unbearable in the absence of water.

 Conforming to the characteristic separations between castes and communities within the universe of the Indian village, Sunita, Dhiru and 38 other Sahariya families live together at one end of Budawani village, which falls in Lalitpur district’s Talbehat block in Uttar Pradesh. They prefer to keep to themselves for fear of being ostracised by more privileged communities in their neighbourhood. Sunita puts it this way, “Hamare gaon main kisi aur se koi lena dena nahi hai (we have nothing to do with others in our village).” There is good reason why she says this: Caste and untouchability issues have put their imprint here, especially where access to water is concerned.

 Sunita and Dhiru, both in their early 30s, are homemakers and mothers. Whenever they get some time free from the chores of looking after the family, collecting water, cooking, cleaning and the like – they also step out to work as farm labour to supplement very modest household incomes.

 Here’s how a typical day for Sunita begins: Up by5 am, she washes her face with the little water that is leftover from the day before. Then she sets off on a 25-minute trek to a well located two kilometres away. For having the ‘privilege’ of taking three buckets of drinking water from this well, Sunita and her friends face daily humiliation at the hands of the other communities, especially the powerful Lodhas, who also have a stake in the well’s water. “The big problem is that the well is located on the land of a privately-owned farm and we need permission to draw water,” she reveals.

 Generally, there’s no restriction on taking this water, but when the store of water dwindles in the height of summer, tension over water rises with the temperature. This stretch in the Bundelkhand region has seen drought for almost a decade. As the sun beats down for almost four months, the wells become nearly dry. “Many a time we’ve been denied water from this well during summers,” says Sunita.

 However, chances of returning with at least a bucket from here are brighter if the women start queuing up even before dawn breaks. Elaborates Dhiru, “Last year, the water level was rock bottom and there were  many wanting their share of the available water. We all waited patiently for our turn and filled smaller steel vessels with the muddy water.” She had begun at3 am, and it was10 amby the time she could make it back home to tackle the other chores.

 If the Sahariya women are turned back from the well, they head to the nearby hand pump to try their luck. Here too the water level plummets during May-June and local farmers, who can afford diesel pumps, add to the women’s woes when they direct the little water in the well to irrigate their fields. In any case, the hand pump water is brackish, and although it can be used washing and bathing, it is clearly not drinkable. Yet, “if there is no other option, then this water just has to serve for drinking purposes as well,” Sunita says, matter-of-factly.

 Ordinarily, to access the water of the hand pump, Sunita has to make at least three trips a day to meet the household needs. In other words, water collection can take up to six hours and during summer the time spent collecting water can nearly double.

 The irony, of course, is that the situation needn’t have had to be so grave. On paper, Budawani has an overhead tank, pipelines and taps since 2000 and even electricity supply, normally missing in most villages in Bundelkhand, is fairly regular here. Unfortunately, someone stole the generator and the motor needed to pump the water within one-and-a-half months of their installation.

 While it is true that the village has not displayed the social cohesion or unity of purpose required to pressurise the local water authority to get the supply restored over these last ten years, thel authorities too have obviously not considered the everyday traumas over water experienced by women here worthy of attention.

 Chasing water is then the central activity of Sunita’s and Dhiru’s existence. It leaves them very little time to seek much-needed wage work that could help buttress household income. Chronic fatigue and health problems like nagging backaches have to be endured because nothing can be done about them, but what is particularly stressful knowing that the lack of water is seriously undermining the lives of their children, especially their daughters.

 Although both Sunita and Dhiru want their children to be regular in their studies, they are unable to ensure this. Sometimes they get delayed in getting them ready for school because of the time they have to spend at the well or hand pump, and the young ones even find themselves locked out of school because they are late. There’s another factor at play here: On the days the two women manage to get work and cannot spend time collecting water, it’s their daughters who are sent to perform this chore, leading to disruptions in their schooling.

 The school in Budawani has classes up to Class Five after which the children travel 10 kilometres to Chandrapur to study till Class Eight. Those who manage to get past that milestone then go all the way to a high school in Talbehat, about 25 kilometres away. Many Sahariya children drop out before they reach high school for several reasons, but water availability is certainly one of them.

 While the denial of access to water continues to affect their entire existence, what are these women doing to get themselves a better deal? Last year, Sunita, Dhiru and several other Sahariya women were drawn to the awareness raising activities of Parmarth, a local NGO working on establishing women’s first right to water, supported by the European Union. The women now know that it is important to talk about their water-related problems publicly in order to persuade the authorities to take action. Says Dhiru, “Poor women like us will have to step forward. After all, the water crisis affects us first and most.”

 The Sahariya women had drafted a petition for the authorities, with help from Parmarth, that clearly enumerates the existing water sources in their village, their problems in accessing them and suggestions to improve the situation. Then, at a public hearing in Talbehat a few months ago, in front of a room full of district-level officials, Sunita spoke out confidently on behalf of everyone when she said, “If we remain silent neither will we get water, nor will the discrimination we face disappear. Today we have spoken out; tomorrow we will come up with solutions, too.”

 The Sahariya women of Budawani appear to be willing to use their newfound sense of confidence to protect their right to water. But the more disturbing problems are that of age-old biases and discriminations that they have to continuously bear.

 (© Women’s Feature Service)

 Women’s groups were among the more articulate social forces in post-EmergencyIndia. Many ordinary women were becoming part of what came to be known as the second phase of the Indian women’s movement in the late Seventies and early Eighties. The central concern was sexual violence, perhaps because it shone the torch on the unequal relations between the genders for the first time in the country’s history. Even an ‘establishment’ organisation like the Mahila Dakshata Samiti began to interrogate the innocuous ‘stove deaths’ of newly married women and concluded that many of them were actually dowry murders. When the Supreme Court overturned the verdict of the Delhi High Court and exonerated two policemen accused of having rapedMathura, a young tribal girl, in a police station, there was a national outcry. An Open Letter to the Supreme Court was written by four law professors fromDelhiUniversitydirectly confronted the judge who delivered that verdict:

 Your Lordship, does the Indian Supreme Court expect a young girl, 14-16 years old, when trapped by two policemen inside the police station, to successfully raise an alarm for help? The Court gives no consideration whatsoever to the socio-economic status, the lack of knowledge of legal rights, the age of the victim, lack of access to legal services, and the fear … which haunts the poor and the exploited in Indian police stations…

 If there could be no avoiding class, there could also be no avoiding patriarchy. It was there at every level of society, and it was also obvious that an issue like violence against women could be a deeply political and class issue. It was logical then for a woman like me, with left leanings, in search of socially relevant activity, to gravitate to the cluster of amorphous organisations which saw themselves constituting the “autonomous” – as opposed to the party-led – women’s movement. They presented a total contrast to the group I had just drifted from: while one was disciplined, centralised, singular in ideology, secretive, hierarchical, male-centric and represented the radical Left, the other was chaotic, patently rudderless, largely female in composition, and embraced a plethora of political cultures, ideologies and strategies, all of which were broadly left of the spectrum. Coping with the chaos, the lack of planning – random meetings held at random places or spontaneous decisions to stage impromptu demos – was daunting, especially in a city likeBombay, strung out like a line of washed linen. But the energy on display went straight to the head and the spontaneous reaching out to each other, across a hugely wide spectrum of backgrounds and ages, touched the heart.

 The questions and quests that had emerged in the late Seventies lingered on with the arrival of the Eighties. The new decade – which many today recognise as the most significant one for the Indian women’s movement – began on an emphatic note. The Forum Against Rape, the ide of which was engendered on the fighting streets of the city and dispersed through pamphlets distributed in offices, trains and stations, was formally inaugurated in February 1980 at the Cama Hall, in the stone heart of South Bombay. I remember the excitement of that moment. Ahilya Rangnekar, the grand old communist woman leader, spoke on the occasion, as did Indira Jaising, the prominent feminist lawyer. Vijay Tendulkar, one of Marathi literature’s finest and socially aware minds, who consistently disturbed the peace of the suburban middle classes through his provocative, non-conformist theatre, hailed the brave women who were ushering in a revolution. ‘The Times of India’, which normally looked askance at any activity that threatened the established order, took note of the event and reported on a “mass signature campaign that has been organised for a reopening of the Mathura case and a review of the loophole-ridden rape law which results in an astoundingly low rate of convictions”.

 You could make what you wanted of the Forum. Marxist-Leninist groups dismissed it as an exercise in revisionism, many voiced apprehensions that it was “blindly anti-men”, but there were as many, including men, who saw it as a social force that had the potential to transform society. Women activists perceived it in more personalised terms – as a platform, a network, a shelter of their own, something that everybody could claim but nobody could possess. While it was located inBombay, it seemed to stand for Everywoman, whether she was battling the timber mafia in the high Himalayas, campaigning against dodgy contraceptive injectables inDelhi, fighting for dues as a fish vendor in coastal Kerala, or protesting court verdicts inHyderabad.

 As awareness of the multi-dimensional aspects of violence grew it was clear that addressing them would demand multidimensional agendas and actions, whether they were struggles to change existing laws or to raise awareness on safety for women in public spaces. In keeping with that realisaton, the Forum Against Rape was re-christened the Forum Against Oppression of Women (FAOW). It was a period of activism all over the world. InSan FranciscoandNew York, women were marching and raising slogans like ‘Let’s Take Back the Night”. InBombaywe felt we needed to take back not just the night but the day, and not just the public space but the private space as well.

 (Excerpted from ‘Making A Difference: Memoirs From The Women’s Movement In India’, Edited by Ritu Menon; Published by Women Unlimited, 2011; Pp: 386; Price (Softback): Rs 350)

(© Women’s Feature Service)

Take Kasturi Pangi of Dumripadar village in Odisha’s tribal Koraput district. Despite being in her seventh month of pregnancy, she has to ferry a big pot of water on her head for at least a kilometre each time she goes for a refill. Says Pangi, “The water source is about half a kilometre away along the national highway, and every day I have to make at least three such trips to meet the family’s water requirements.”

The actual value of this effort is lost on her, as indeed her husband, Sarat Pangi, a construction worker. When asked about his wife’s daily scramble to collect water for the family, he casually mumbles, “She has to bring the water in time so that I can take a bath before I leave for work at 8 am.”

In Odisha, there are innumerable villages that have no committed source of water or have very poor water supply. According to Census 2011, around 35.4 per cent of families in the state have to travel long distances to fetch drinking water. A decade back this figure was 30.8 per cent. In other words, there has been an almost 5 per cent rise in the number of villages without adequate water during the summer. Some districts are worse off. Every second family in the tribal-dominated district of Kandhamal travels more than half a kilometre to fetch drinking water, while 50.4 per cent of houses are not near any source of drinking water. Kandhamal is, in fact, the worst affected among the state’s 30 districts. The data further reveals that in rural Odisha only 7.5 per cent households has access to tap water, while 19.8 per cent depends on wells and another 66.9 per cent uses tubewells.

The day starts early for these water carriers and things get particularly harrowing during the summer months. “When the river dries up under the hot summer sun, we women sometimes have to dig a hole on the river bed to access water. These holes are known as ‘chahalas’ and we have to wait for each one to fill up before we can scoop out more water,” explains Malati Bag of Kirakela village, in Nuapada, another water scare district in the state.

Life is hardly easier for the women of Bolangir district which is, like the others, a tribal dominated one. Sabitri Tandi of Bangomunda block in Bolangir has to go to a water source about half a kilometre away from her home. Since she has to make three such trips a day in the searing heat, she ends up covering three to four kilometres every day.

What is generally not reported is the high price women pay for water collection water in terms of their physical health. Jamuna Dharua, 23, from Bolangir, has a tragic story to relate, and this despite having a well in the premises of her home. Last year, she suffered a miscarriage while drawing water from the well. Recalls Dharua, “We have eight member families solely depend on that one well for all its domestic use and on an average, we have to draw at least 20 buckets of water from the well every day. I was in my fourth month of my pregnancy during a time when the water level of the well had gone down to 15 ft deep because of dry summer conditions. While I was drawing water, I felt a mild pain in my lower abdomen that I overlooked. A few days later, I had a miscarriage and the doctor explained that bending over at the waist for long time while drawing water from the well could be one of the factors for this.” Ironically today her sister-in-law, who is pregnant, spends much of her day drawing water from the well.

Dharua’s mother-in-law, Kalabati, 60, is quick to defend herself, “Our women are used to this kind of work and everyone does it – my ‘bohu’ (daughters-in-law) – are no exception. Jamuna’s miscarriage was an accident. I don’t keep well, so I cannot help these girls with such chores. So if my ‘bohu’ don’t do this work, who will? My sons?” She poses this question of her sons doing such work almost as an unthinkable proposition!

Scarcity of water has other health implications as well. As summer wears on, the people of BahadulkivillageofRayagadadistrict become dependent on the local stream for their daily needs and incidents of diarrhoea and cholera shoot up because the stream is contaminated by water from a nearby drain. Explains one woman who didn’t want to be named, “We are getting infections because of this water. When we get our periods, there is insufficient water to clean our clothes, and we end up with urinary infections.”

Explains Bhubaneswar-based social activist, Amrita Patel, who is familiar with women’s concerns in this region, “Generally, I have seen women in rural Odisha carry massive 15- or 20-litre aluminium pitchers full of water on their heads, while holding on to another 10- to 15-litre bucket full, and walking several kilometres. One hardly ever sees a man carrying even a small pitcher of water on his head! This is because, according to local social norms, getting water for domestic purposes like for drinking, bathing and cleaning is the sole responsibility of the women.”

What disturbs Patel is that public discussions on reducing the burden of women in terms of water collection only revolve around the need to reduce the distance to the source by provisioning a water source at an accessible location. While this is an important concern, she believes that the time has also come to break the norm that ensures that water collection is strictly seen as a woman’s task.

Ranjan Panda, Convenor, Water Initiatives Odisha, a voluntary organisation working on water issues, is worried about the future. Says he, “As the years go by, sources of drinking water are only going to get depleted, given our vanishing water bodies. This will make women even more vulnerable in the future. It is time that society becomes more sensitive to the issue. So far the government has never addressed it from a gender perspective.”

(© Women’s Feature Service)

 Ever since the sudden demise of her mother, Lucknow-based Laxmi Nishad, 19, has been the sole provider for her five-member family, including her alcoholic father. “My sister was just 11 months old when my mother passed away. My father, who drinks all the time, refused to give us any money or even look after us. So the responsibility of running the household fell entirely on me. I was just 13 and all alone with no one to help or guide me. It’s then that I began to work as a housemaid, sweeping, swabbing floors and washing utensils in people’s homes to earn money. When my sister grew older she too joined me,” says the young girl.

 Like all regular teenage girls, Nishad dreamt of normal life and a chance to go to school so that she could achieve something in life. She got lucky the day she heard about Prerna Girls’ School that happens to be near her locality. At this afternoon school, established by the Study Hall Educational Foundation, over 600 girls like Laxmi, from the neighbouring slums, not only gain quality education, but through regularly organised activities like theatre workshops, quizzes, creative writing and singing, they have fun as they learn.

 It’s at her school that Nishad first discovered life through a camera lens. This happened last year when a special One Minutes Junior workshop was organised atPrernaGirlsSchoolin partnership with the Netherlands-based The One Minute Foundation and Unicef.

 All these years, the 19-year-old had waited for the opportunity to talk to someone about the burden on her young shoulders, and the five days it took for her, and her 14 classmates, to master the camera proved to be cathartic. During the course of the workshop, she got to tell her story that finally took the shape of a one-minute video on her life, which she aptly called, ‘Me and My Life’. Says the youngster, “I always wanted a proper home and I found it at thePrernaGirlsSchoolwhere I study now. So I wanted to tell people my story and I did that through the film I made at the One Minute’s Junior workshop.”

 Laxmi’s friend, Preeti Rawat, 18, chose to talk about the unfair practice of dowry that many families of young girls like her face. Through her one-minute film, ‘Dowry’ Rawat made the powerful point that women are more valuable than the dowry they bring. Elaborates Rawat, “When we were asked to think about an idea on which we would like to make a film, I instantly chose to capture the evils of dowry. By scripting and shooting for my one-minute film I was able to speak my mind, tell everyone that dowry was wrong. It was a wonderful feeling.”

 For Karen Cirillo, Executive Producer – Children’s Section, UnicefNew York, who oversaw the workshop, these confident voices are priceless. She says, “The workshops we organise with The One Minute Foundation create an opportunity for young people’s voices to be heard. This is what we have taught the 14 girls here inLucknow. They have learnt to give voice to their thoughts. Each one of them has gone through an experience that they wanted to not only talk about but show the world.”

 Even Olivia Glebbeek and Arnar Ageirson of The One Minute Foundation found the girls to be fiercely independent when it came to expressing themselves. Says Glebbeek, “We visit many countries and work with children, helping them to make their one-minute movies. Usually the issues that are touched upon are those that broadly affect children on the whole. Working with the girls fromPrernaSchoolgave me a chance to understand the life of an Indian girl child. Every minute of her existence is a struggle to survive, express herself and make a place for herself, in spite of all the restrictions put on her right from birth. All the 14 films made had a pinch of personal experience added to the script, which I thought was very unique.”

 For their films, the students came up with their own ideas, created the drawing boards, went on location and shot their whole movie by themselves – just like all the other children who have been part of the One Minute’s workshops held across the globe. “We have conducted over 100 such workshops in different parts of the world and twice inIndia. These films when done are put out for everyone to see on YouTube, on TV programmes, in conferences and seminars around the world and they are screened at Unicef events that focus on the young children and the issues concerning them in different parts of the world,” adds Cirillo.

Apart from fighting for their survival and identity, these young girls are also the only earning hands for their family. Most double up as salesgirls at the Prerna canteen; others take up some odd jobs within the school to earn a living. Some even work as housemaids in the posh houses near the slums they live in, coming to class in the afternoon.

 Of course, all this hard work hasn’t dampened their desire to be normal teenagers. Take Arti Gupta, 17, who describes herself as a “new age” girl. She certainly represents the youth of today, firmly believing that the first step towards leading a life on her own terms would involve becoming economically independent. Elaborates Gupta, “When I came toPrernaSchool, I was not sure how I could begin earning right away. Then I got to know about the part-time work opportunities that we can take up while studying and for me it was a god sent opportunity.” Today, she does shift duty at the school boutique and earns Rs 2000 (US$1=Rs 51) a month.

 Predictably, Gupta chose to call her movie ‘Stepping Out’, which talks about the much-coveted freedom that girls are being deprived of today. She has showcased her own fight for liberation and how she became a role model for girls in her community.

 Renu Soni, a chirpy 17-year-old, named her film, ‘Beyond Fear Is Winning’, which is about adolescent girls being afraid to participate in activities in society and school being constantly suppressed by their family. Quips Soni, “I never thought there would be so many people watching what I wanted to say. I was always afraid of going on stage but now with my film I have taken the centre-stage. I am so much more confident than I was before; I too can be an achiever.”

 In fact, all the 14 debutante filmmakers got to feel like super achievers at the special screening of their films, where special invitees, Shashank Shekhar Tripathi, Editor-in-Chief of ‘Dainik Jagran’, a prominent Hindi daily newspaper, Sunita Aron, Resident Editor of the ‘Hindustan Times’ and Gulab Chand, Additional Director General, All India Radio Uttar Pradesh,sat through with rapt attention.

 For the young women, this is just the beginning. Brimming with confidence and courage, they are ready to not only face life’s tough challenges, they are no longer hesitant to show the world their world.

 (© Women’s Feature Service)

Today, like their famous ancestor, the members of the Rani Durgavati Mahila Sangh are courageously taking on patriarchal forces in their region that have long denied them their rights.

In late March, around 1,500 women came together for the annual general body meeting of the ‘sangh’ – which they term a ‘mahaadiveshan’, or mass meeting – and shared many joyous moments of dancing and singing together for an entire day and night. It is a rare sight inIndiato see rural women spend recreational time with friends, but what was rarer still was the spirit of camaraderie that existed between the women. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Running through the fun times, however, was a serious theme: Giving Didori’s women greater social and economic autonomy and providing them with the tools with which to gain equality.

Today, the Rani Durgavati Mahila Sangh, which was set up six years ago, is a federation of 536 Self-Help Groups (SHGs), organised into 31 clusters, with a total membership of 6,432 women from 119 villages in the blocks of Karanjia (not to be confused with a block in Odisha with the same name), Samnapur, Shahpura and Amarpur. Most of the members are Gond tribals, but there are many from the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), besides a sprinkling of Scheduled Caste (SC) women as well.

These SHGs, which at last count had earned an interest of Rs 6.14 lakh (US$1=Rs 51), were set up by Pradan, an organisation working with the rural poor, in order to make cheap credit available to local women and liberate them from the clutches of local money lenders and landlords. Pradan has also introduced new farming methods here, which have helped to buttress household incomes. As Sebanti Bai of Markum village in Karanjia block, puts it, “Now we have also started growing tomatoes, ladies finger and chillies during the monsoon season, something we had never done earlier. This has brought us additional income for household expenses.”

Although Pradan’s initial emphasis was on the economic empowerment of women from socially excluded communities, the women of these SHGs have evolved as community representatives demanding their entitlements, including their right to a life of dignity. Partnering this process is the Delhi-based women’s resource group, Jagori, under a special gender empowerment project initiated in 2011 and supported by the UN Women’s Fund for Gender Equality.

What women have gained the most by coming together is the capacity to collectively articulate their everyday needs and look for solutions. Drupti Bai, 34, explains how such discussions helped address the problem of drinking water in her area, “The issue of hardships related to collecting water was discussed at a cluster meeting. We women then decided to take action on it and with the help of Pradan we met local Forest Department officials. We were able to convince them of the crisis of water shortage we were facing and they allowed us access to water sources within the forest provided we ensured that we would not disturb the surrounding environment in any way.”

Drupti Bai considers this an achievement to be cherished. “It is a great relief to us to know that our children are now drinking clean water. They are certainly falling less sick than they did in the past.”

Interestingly, while most of the members of the Rani Durgavati Mahila Sangh are largely illiterate and had never seen a computer, these days the federation’s work is expedited by a computer system run by hired experts, whom the women refer to as “computer munshis”. These “computer munshis” key in the data provided by the women during meetings. The inflow of this data is through a ‘Regular Meeting Transaction Entry 1’ (RMTE 1), while the outflow of the keyed in data reaches the women through RMTE 2. With the help of this software, the women can monitor the functioning of their groups.

Explains Shikha Singh, Project Executive, Pradan, Dindori, “The RMTE system is accessed by 80 per cent of the members of the Rani Durgavati Mahila Sangh. It has brought them new confidence in a society that has traditionally taken away their rights, including their right to new technology. There are challenges of course, but these women are on the learning curve and have the potential to understand the technology and take their work forward.”

Other issues that have been articulated by these women, and which found an echo at the ‘mahaadiveshan’, include violence against women, their exclusion in political decision making and the rising tide of communalism. According to Singh, the partnership with Jagori has not only helped the federation members understand gender issues better, it has also helped the Pradan staff perceive new ways to communicate important ideas. She says, “Women are now able to make the link between gender perspectives and everyday life. Moreover, they are able to talk about themselves and their experiences openly, reflect on sensitive issues like violence, and take initiatives together.”

What is also notable is the fact that the women take all decisions involving the running of the federation, autonomously. Says Aziza Haleem, who is interning with Pradan and was deputed to help organise this year’s ‘mahaadiveshan’, “I may have been in charge of the cultural programmes, but let me tell you this event is entirely the work of the members of the federation. They have been preparing for this annual day for months. They discussed the logistics, the programmes – this time a quiz was included – decided on the budget and who the guest speakers should be through a consultative process. It was totally their show and their energy is infectious!”

As I left this mass meeting at Dindori, I was struck by how women, who had so little going for them in terms of development, have now learnt to wield the tools of equality to make better lives for themselves. The words of the song they had sung during the ‘mahaadhiveshan’ then came back to me: “Par laga liye hain humne, ke pinjare mein ab kaun bethega (I have made wings for myself, now who will keep me in a cage).”

 (© Women’s Feature Service)

Where are the women journalists and how are the few in the industry placed? These are just some of the questions that the Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI) attempts to answer through the country’s first comprehensive study on the participation of women in the media in the island nation. Between April and July last year, the SLPI surveyed 31 newspapers, 22 radio stations and seven TV stations to reveal that while there are only 29 per cent women working in the print media, television and radio fared a shade better on the gender scale, employing 33 and 35 per cent women, respectively.

Says Imran Furkan, Chief Executive Officer, SLPI, “The objective of this study, which is exhaustive and used a combination of both quantitative and qualitative research approaches, was to get a first hand look at the distribution of male-female journalists within the mainstream media institutions in Sri Lanka and to capture more detailed information about the attitudes, perceptions and experiences of female journalists. This was done so as determine the status of women within the industry and to understand the reasons that limit female participation.”

Of course, what is absolutely clear is that while there has been a surge in the number of institutions and colleges that teach journalism or mass media in the country, which has undoubtedly facilitated the entry of many more women into the profession, the odds of them reaching the top – read decision-making or managerial positions – are extremely slim even today.

While senior journalists and editors interviewed, who have been in the industry for more than 15 years, remarked that they are glad to see the numbers up, it doesn’t however make much sense, unless women also begin to share the important positions and decision making opportunities with their male colleagues.

The study throws light on some reasons for this unfortunate reality. The first point, brought up by a woman editor quoted in the study, is that, most often, only a select few women make journalism their lifetime vocation. “This is quite true,” says Sumana Saparamadu, who has retired as Editor of a weekly newspaper where she has worked for over 20 years. She feels that “women have other roles to play and do not stay long enough to glean the kind of experience required to head a newspaper”. They make a conscious decision not to progress beyond a certain point and this is perhaps one of the main reasons why there are minimal numbers of females at the top. Adds Saparamadu, “Marriage and home-making take first billing. This was true 20 years ago and despite more women going out to work now, this remains the main reason even today.”

Other social factors also act as deterrents. Women journalists often leave the profession prematurely as they are expected to travel out of town on work often, the study points out. Moreover, many hesitate to cover the high-risk, hardcore beats of crime, military or politics, preferring to stick to entertainment, fashion or social issues. Though there are no male dominated assignments – there are no overt restrictions on women journalists wanting to write even outside their beat – factors like family values or cultural and individual beliefs do come into play. “For some, hesitancy to work on certain assignments, travel or work late comes not from any personal experience but it is imbedded in them – it is part of culture,” said one senior journalist. Male journalists, obviously, hold the narrow view that their female colleagues simply don’t want to “push themselves enough”.

However, prominent women editors do not wish to see the assigning of beats as a gender thing. The study quotes one senior female editor saying: “Gender is never an issue. Assigning stories is based entirely on the strength of the individual.”

While the study points to a freedom of choice when it comes to picking a beat or assignment, Malini Govinnage, who has worked as a feature writer in both Sinhala and English newspapers, points to a major concern that prevents women from realising their full potential as career journalists: gender and sexual discrimination that is rampant in the working life of female journalists. According to her, women are forced to “look good” if they have to advance in their careers. So whereas some may use that to their advantage, those that are “lesser primped up” tend to loose out. Govinnage believes that the SLPI should have gender education and gender awareness programmes for both men and women working in the industry.

Limitations and perceptions aside, women journalists have firmly established their professional credibility and found their niche within the industry. According to the female editor of a daily newspaper, through the media industry, especially the print media, is very much male dominated things are rapidly changing. Even five years ago female editors like her were a rare breed, but now she is glad to see that there are a few more who hold the same position as her in the industry. She is convinced that the industry will have to accept many more women in what is she refers to as the “boys club”.

Many are positive that the change needed at the managerial and decision-making levels will come in time to come. As one senior journalist said, “There was a time when female journalists could only go up to heading a magazine or program section of media organisations. Now there are several who have managed to break through and rise to the top and in time more females will follow suit.”

(© Women’s Feature Service)

Today, however, all that is changing thanks to a water management revolution led by ordinary village women, a majority of them tribals. “The magic has been worked through our Self Help Group’s (SHGs) water management programme,” says Sadmoni Hembram, 39, of Tilaboni village, who proudly informs that she has a multi-crop land that yields two vegetable and one paddy crop in a year these days.

In an area where development has been stunted due to a weak government machinery and increasing Maoist influence, SHGs like Sadmoni’s ‘Petre Madwa’ have spearheaded developmental initiatives like the Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM) under the government’s Swarna Jayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojna (SGSY). Of course, this has been achieved with guidance from Pradan, an NGO working on creating sustainable livelihood in the region.

“Purulia that falls in the Agro-Economical Zone 7 gets adequate rainfall, yet most of the water just flows away, particularly in the hilly areas. Therefore, we train the SHG women to conserve water, increase water harvesting and water table levels, check soil erosion and offer a combination of crops best suited to the category of land and available water resources to improve livelihood,” explains Kuntalika Kumbhakar, Integrator (state unit), Pradan.

As per Sadmoni, in order to improve access to water for irrigation in her village, they have “made ‘hapas’, or small water tanks, where rain water is collected.” These ‘hapas’ have a technical design, wherein the lowest point of the field is excavated in steps and the rain water flows into the tank. “The size of these tanks varies from 30ftx30ft to 100ftx100ft depending on the area that needs to be irrigated,” she says. Once the water is collected, the next step is to ensure that a minimum amount is used to irrigate the maximum area.

Better water management has led to a remodelling of local agricultural practices with farmers now cultivating short-term crops. The land in Purulia falls into four categories and the tribal population categorises them as: ‘byde’ or upland, ‘kanali’, which refers to surface-level medium upland as well as medium lowland, and ‘bohal’ or low-lying land. Says Sadmoni, “The land holdings among the families of women in the 184 SHGs in Burrabazar block fall under the medium upland category. Today, we first plant a pre-monsoon cash crop like vegetables or creepers such as cucumber or gourds, which use the north-western showers. Later, a short-term paddy crop that is sufficient for our use is sown. This is followed by another vegetable cash crop. There is sufficient water because along with the monsoons, we use the ‘hapas’ water. In extreme dry seasons, we plant mustard for a short term. Almost all farmers now have at least double or three crops.”

To celebrate this agricultural turnaround and to compare notes and share strategies on varied concerns in the region, recently around 5,000 women belonging to 350 SHGs, organised under two federations, ‘Jhalda Nari Shakti Mahila Sangh’ and ‘Sabuj Sathi Nari Shakti Sangh’, came together for a ‘mahaadhiveshan’, or mass meeting, held in the Barrabazar and Jhalda blocks of Purulia, respectively. All these women are true change-makers and have shown that by simply ensuring better outcomes from traditional livelihoods like agriculture, achieved through practices like watershed land and water management measures, micro-credit financing, and horticulture, poor village households, too, can lead a life of dignity.

Like Sadmoni, Sarathi Kumar Bala, 30, who was present at the ‘mahaadhiveshan’, is a happy woman today. In addition to water conservation, she, and other tribal women of the Narayani Mahila Samity in Berada village, has understood the importance of safe drinking water and hygiene. Here, the Water for All intervention, which focuses on safe drinking water and sanitation and on bringing about a change in the attitude of the villager, has made the difference. Effecting change, Sarathi’s group has been conducting house visits to convince villagers to keep their surroundings clean, wash hands regularly and not to defecate in the open. “We also make them aware of the Rs 3,200 (US$1=Rs 51) government subsidy to build latrines if they contribute Rs 300 themselves,” she says.

As Sarathi’s village group successfully put into practice the Water For All strategy, their tribal sisters in Mohuldi hamlet, which falls under Jhalda I Block, were not far behind. In an area characterised by water scarcity, the Radha Rani SHG, led by Balika Mahato, has pioneered an initiative to provide piped drinking water. “We not only constructed several water harvesting structures for irrigation, but have set up a pipe distribution channel across the village to ensure that water from deep tube wells used for drinking is not wasted,” says Balika, 38.

Even in the hilly terrain of Bagmundi and Ayodhya blocks, tribal women from 65 SHGs now know how to hold on to the rain water that previously used to simply flow away. They have devised low-cost methods like building earthen dams and using the gravitational flow mechanism to carry the water to the site through channels. “The cost is minimal and the women are reaping the benefits in the form of increased agricultural yield,” points out Kuntalika.

In Gokurnagar village, for instance, 8-10 bighas of non-fertile land today is yielding paddy, potato and mustard crops through the year because of the efforts of the Bidhuchandan Mahila Samity, a group of 14 tribal women. “We first built mud banks around the land to prevent soil erosion and allowed the rain water to stagnate for a year. Then we spread cow dung fertiliser to make the soil fertile and dug several ‘hapas’. After the fertiliser dried up, we did a soil test and then planted our first paddy crop. For the last two years, we are also harvesting potato and mustard on the same land,” beams Mangali Mandi, 28, the treasurer of the group.

With a flourishing livelihood prototype in place, the Purulia women are now training their energies on tackling the social problems plaguing them. Partnering this process is Delhi-based women’s resource group, Jagori, under a special gender empowerment project initiated in 2011 and supported by the UN Women’s Fund for Gender Equality. Says Mangali, “During the ‘mahaadhiveshan’ we discussed issues like child marriage and dowry. In Purulia, there are over 40 per cent child marriages and dowry, though non-existent amongst tribals, is a problem for the OBCs. We have also found that female selective abortions are on the rise. Today, we have the strength and solidarity to oppose these social evils and that is our next course of action.”

Incidentally, things are already starting to look up. Take Gokurnagar village. Where earlier the women were not allowed to venture out of homes, often prevented from attending SHG meetings and forced to migrate with the family during the harvest season, they now enjoy an equal status in decision making. Of course, it helps that their economic status has improved considerably.

In fact, this is the story across Burrabazar block where the 184 SHGs have a total fund value of one crore ninety lakh rupees, of which they disbursed one crore thirty-five lakh rupees in loans in the last financial year. Such has been the impact of this socio-economic empowerment that Sadmoni says, “Aajkal dada bagale gecche, amra meeting esche (These days men take the cattle for grazing while we attend a meeting)!”

Purulia’s SHG movement is a development initiative without a political umbrella and it has given recognition and dignity to women, who earlier had no significance, presence or voice.

(© Women’s Feature Service)

“There are 15 women coconut sellers who travel to Sealdah every morning on this train. We return together on the 10.20 am local train after selling the coconuts at the Kole market in Sealdah. We have to travel daily because Budge Budge has a very small market and we have no buyers for the coconuts here,” says Akhtari.

Most women vendors come into Kolkata on the south-eastern local trains and while there is no formal estimate of their numbers, roughly for every 20 male vendors there would be 2-3 female vendors making their way into the city. Of course, all of them live below the poverty line.

Migration has been a part of Akhtari’s life. Born in Muzzafarpur, Bihar, she migrated permanently toWest Bengalafter marriage to Alam, who works in a jute mill. She then became a daily migrant to Kolkata when she started selling coconuts to augment the family income. “I have been travelling every day for the last 15 years. I have four children and extra money was needed to provide for them,” she says.

While two of her older daughters are married now, the youngest is studying in Class VI. Her 18-year-old son is a school dropout and a vagabond. Giving a glimpse into her daily routine, Akhtari says, “All the coconut sellers buy ‘roti-sabzi’ from a stall near the market and eat before returning. Once back home, I do the household work and cook for the family. I try to wind up work and go to sleep by 8 pm every day so that I can wake up on time.”

Life is not easy for the women vendors like Akhtari, who travel from the suburbs and districts to state capital Kolkata daily to sell their wares, which vary from coconuts to vegetables, to fruits, flowers, fish and rice. “We carry heavy loads but are not given space in the vendors’ compartments. The male vendors muscle their way in and occupy all the space. We are forced to travel in the ladies’ compartment,” says Sahida Bibi, 50, another coconut seller in the group, who works to supplement the earnings of her son, who works as a contractual labour. “My husband is blind and unable to work. I contribute the major share to the family income, which averages around Rs 5,000 (US$1=Rs 51) per month. Of this, around Rs 3,000 goes in the treatment of my husband,” she adds.

Harassment and abuse are major problems facing the women vendors, who are regular commuters. “Travelling in the ladies compartment in the early hours is a nightmare. Drunks sleep on the seat and refuse to budge. They vomit and even defecate in the compartment. They pass lewd remarks and often etch obscene graffiti on the walls. The RPF personnel turn a deaf ear to our pleas for help or demand money to act,” says Saira Bibi, 40, a flower vendor, who travels daily by Midnapore local toHowrahstation.

Most of the produce these women sell is acquired through moneylenders who advance them cash and then charge a heavy interest on the returns. “I earn about Rs 1,400 per week but my loan from the moneylender is Rs 2,300. I keep Rs 700 and give Rs 700 to the money lender every week while the Rs 2300 loan remains intact. It will remain till I die,” bemoans Mahiruh Bibi, 49, who is a vegetable vendor hailing from Pokepali area in North 24 Parganas. This mother of seven has a husband who is paralysed. One son is a jute mill worker while another works as a daily labourer.

Many of them have been physically assaulted several times. “We are very poor. Earlier, at times we travelled without ticket and the railway staff and police used to beat us and throw us out of the trains. But now we have managed to acquire the ‘Izzat’ cards issued for BPL passengers for Rs 25 per month. At least, the harassment from railway staff has reduced,” says Usha Pramanik, 42, a fish vendor, hailing from Gordor village inDiamondHarbourin South 24 Parganas. She brings seasonal fish like ‘boal’, hilsa, ‘puti’ and ‘bhetki’ to the market near Sealdah station every day. Her income is also seasonal, dwindling to a pittance at the end of winter when the water bodies in rural areas dry up.

According to railway officials, women comprise 30 per cent of the total ‘Izzat’ card holders under the Eastern Railway. But the women cannot forget the trauma they had to go through in order to get one. Elaborates Kalpana Mandal, 39, of Mograhat inDiamondHarbour, who sells vegetables in Kole market in Sealdah along with her husband, “Merely showing our BPL cards was not enough. First, there was the harassment to just get the railway forms. We had to run around for almost a month before we got our hands on the forms. Then they had to be signed by the local councilor for which we had to beg and plead and pay touts. That took about three months, a lot of sweat and tears, for the process to be completed.”

Then there is also political harassment under a system called ‘tola neva’, or fixing vending spots in the markets near the station. Local goons, owing allegiance to different political parties, give out spots to the vendors in the train itself after collecting money as ‘hafta’ (weekly protection money). “It’s either ‘pay the demanded rate or lose your spot’.  Women vendors are bullied more as they are unable to fight back. If they refuse to pay the rate, the space is allotted to another and they are threatened with physical harm. The market traders’ associations are supposed to issue passes to the vendors but it’s never done and that is why we have no fixed place and have to pay the weekly charge to the goons,” rues Saira Bibi.

Despite the severe odds, the women vendors have taken the necessity of temporary migration from rural to urban areas in their stride. Despite the chains of poverty, they survive, facing harassment in all forms through sheer grit and determination.

(© Women’s Feature Service)

Jahan Ara, who is six months pregnant, lives in a one-room shanty made of corrugated steel sheets in Dhaka’s largest slum located near the poshGulshanLakearea of the Bangladeshi capital. Walking past the high-rise buildings, mega showrooms and sprawling homes that line both sides of the street in the heart of town, a sudden turn changes the scenario completely. The lanes become narrower and dirtier; instead of the concrete walls and glass windows are steel sheets with small holes cut out in them for windows.

This is the Korail slum, spread out over 90 acres of government land. According to Salina Bagom, Chairman of the Nogor Bostibashi Unnayan Songastha (Urban Slum Development Organisation), Korail came into existence about 25 years back and today has a population of 78,000. In the one-room, 100-200 sq. ft. dwellings, families with an average of five members, have created a life for themselves.

Unfortunately, the lived realities in these narrow lanes – no wider than three to five metres – are pathetic. For residents like Jahan Ara, spaces between lanes lined with steel sheets serve as bathing areas or kitchens. For her children, Shamim and Shahab, and their friends these gullies double up as play areas, where they practice cricket regularly. And in these very narrow alleyways there are around 800 shops operating – be it a barber’s shop or a tailor’s, a general merchant or a medicine store. In fact, there’s also a dentist’s clinic, a community centre and a coaching centre here.

Nonetheless, when it comes to basic amenities, the 16,000 families of Korail are struggling. Not only are they grappling with severe sanitation and water problems, they don’t have any access to government-run health or educational institutions either. Says Abdul Mannan, a community leader, “The problem is that we are considered illegal residents and, therefore, we are not entitled to any government facilities like health, education, water, sanitation, and so on.”

Mannan is not wrong. A visit to Korail will reveal that it has just one government-run health centre, while there are no state schools at all. Of course, to fill in these service gaps, there are at least 30 formal and informal community-run schools functional in the slum as well as several local health ‘clinics’, though no one is sure of their authenticity. Obviously then, the health indicators are very poor here, with residents regularly suffering from debilitating ailments such as jaundice, skin infections and gastro-enteritis.

Dismal sanitation is the other big challenge in this area, one which especially affects the women and children. These days, a heavily pregnant Jahan Ara constantly fears slipping and falling off the narrow bamboo bridge on her way to the toilet, built after spending a precious BDT 1,000 (US$1=81.7 Bangladeshi Taka). In fact, more than 70 per cent of the slum dwellers, who do not have proper toilets, face similar insecurities.

Like their homes, the toilets-on-stilts, built over theGulshanLake, are steel sheets and bamboo structures. Fitted inside the small, one-square-metre space is a squat toilet fashioned with two heavy stones with a hole in the middle into which a four-inch plastic pipe is attached. The other end of this pipe opens into the lake.

Realising the urgent need for building proper toilets here, Salina Bagom, who has been working in Korail ever since the slum came into existence, and who acts as a bridge between the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) operating in the area and the local community, has facilitated the operation of a sanitation project, Advancing Sustainable Environmental Health, spearheaded by Dushtha Shasthya Kendra (DSK), a Bangladesh-based NGO, and supported by Water Aid, a UK-based charity organisation.

Under this project, 5,000 households are being targeted for toilet construction and hygiene promotion. The average cost of building a proper toilet comes to around BDT 10,000 and the community is being motivated to contribute money to build one toilet among 10 households.

When Jahan Ara heard about this proposal she eagerly volunteered to collect the funds. However, with only six families in her lane, it’s unlikely that her dream of a proper toilet will be fulfilled. “I am collecting money to get a proper toilet but do not know whether I will ever get one,” she wonders. Jahan Ara’s husband, Abul Kalam, has a push cart and can manage to earn around BDT 5,000 a month. A major chunk of this money goes into buying medicines, because her children fall ill frequently. Whatever is left goes into buying food and water.

In Korail, residents have to buy drinking water, though they can ill afford it. Though there are plastic pipes with drinking water supply coming into the slum – incidentally, these have been laid in the filthyGulshanLake- this is not official. An arrangement has been worked out with private vendors, who have provided illegal water connections for which each family pays at least BDT 600 per month. Says Kalam, “It is an irony that people living in well-to-do areas across the lake avail our services – we drive their cars, maintain their gardens and clean their houses – but none of them ever bother to think about us; of the dismal conditions in which we are leading our life.”

Community leader Mannan also feels that such severe neglect on the part of government authorities can only mean that they may be thinking of getting the slum site vacated. However, he has a proposal in mind. “We are demanding that the government make multi-storey buildings on at least 20 acres of land where we all can live properly,” he says. And for this, the slum dwellers have filed a petition for a stay order in the court. Unfortunately, Mannan’s prediction has come true – recently, more than 2,000 shanties in Korail, and adjoining areas, were razed to the ground in an eviction drive carried out at only a few hours’ notice, rendering thousands homeless.

Jahan Ara has the final word: “Just because we are poor it does not mean that we do not deserve a life of dignity. We also need potable water and proper toilets. Even my children deserve a decent education and something as basic as a playground.”

(© Women’s Feature Service)

In a sense our birthing began with the Muktadar Commission, set up to enquire into the rape of Rameeza Bi and the custodial death of her husband in 1978. We hadn’t yet formally come together as a group but that enquiry was like a breaking-in for many of us – revealing what it meant to be a woman. How seldom fundamental rights or the rule of law came into play was an eye-opener for many of us. That the law and the police could also be so unashamedly impervious to issues of violence was a practical revelation that sent waves of utter shock at what could lie in store. For me, personally, it was also the realisation that rape does not happen with shattered glass and loud screams and a clash of cymbals in the background. No. Gang rape could be a series of drunken men coming in one after the other to finish their business while you murmured, “How many more of you?” That a rapist could actually give you a mug of water to wash yourself – an act of ultimate kindness. And the whole aura of erotic appeal that surrounds a rape victim. Men wanting to rescue and marry her. Others wanting to shelter her in their guest houses. It was as if they hoped that this woman who had actually roused drunken constables to rape and, like Helen of Troy, burnt the topless towers of Hyderabad, in whose defence so many lives were lost and the army was called out, could arouse and revive their fast-fading sexual capacity. The ‘glamour’ of rape. Lessons learnt, that prepared us for theMathuracampaign.

Unfading memories. That firstBombaymeeting of women’s movements in 1980, the beginning of the campaign to amend the rape law after theMathurajudgement. All of us paid our own and our friends’ fares. About three hundred of us lived in a single hall where we slept, rolled up our beds, queued for the toilets and began the meeting at the dot of ten, with those who hadn’t managed their baths participating in their nighties. There we were, looking at each other with the excitement, sizing each other up, sharing, calculating – the works. It was there that we decided to draft the amendments to the rape law. I recall the tension between conflicting interests, one lot saying the burden of proof should not rest with the victim, others fearing that this would become a perfect weapon for the state to use against activists. And yet another group screaming, if we can’t trust women how can we work together? And a couple of us lost our purses in that hall and couldn’t believe that women in a meeting could steal from their sisters! Oh, we were an intelligent, mixed-up, committed and motley crowd.

Clear memories of how, after the whole house had come to an agreement on the amendments to be proposed, Madhu Kishwar and group (who were absent for the season) turned up the next day and insisted on reopening and revising the issues. And the endless debates over Chandralekha’s Kali poster and whether women’s groups should use symbols that were disempowering in essence, or use them to express Woman Power. Our palpable fear of the Gandhians – much as the public now fears Maoists. That was where I met Vibhuti Patel, Ritu Dewan, Anuradha Gandhy, Chandralekha and many, many others. The Forum Against Rape oraganised a public meeting where my group deputed me to speak. There was so much excitement and discussion and fun going on that I finally locked myself into a toilet for ten minutes to sort out my speech! And I still remember the clutch of men who were our audience, and when I asked who they were the Forum women laughed and said, “Our men, who else!” It was an unforgettable experience.

What a long way we have travelled since then, and how little we realised that we had miles to go. Those deep dark woods would uncover so many truths we had taken for granted: our understanding of what secular means; how our understanding and assumptions about secularism could completely exclude and alienate women. It was at that firstBombaymeeting that I met Flavia Agnes and read the paper she distributed, and was open-mouthed at her courage in admitting that this was her story of violence and abuse.

(Excerpted from ‘Making A Difference: Memoirs From The Women’s Movement In India’, Edited by Ritu Menon; Published by: Women Unlimited, 2011; Pp: 386; Price (Softback): Rs 350)

(© Women’s Feature Service)

Considering that Malayali women have had the right to education since the pre-colonial times, one would like to imagine that they enjoy a better quality of life, in terms of a greater freedom of choice and movement. Well, imagine away… Because, hidden behind the image of the gold laden, smiling bride and the hard working nurse, is another face of the Malayali woman, one who is battling social mores, prejudices, and patriarchy.

Daughters of Kerala, a collection of 25 short stories by award-winning Malayalam authors, opens the window to different aspects of the Malayali woman’s personality and spirit. Translated by Achamma C. Chandersekaran, the book kicks off with Lalithambika Antharjanam’s In the Shroud (1931), about a young newly-married Namboodri girl who starves herself to death as she is caught in the moral dilemma of fulfilling her marital obligations even as she longs for her childhood lover. The short story is a specimen of Antharjanam’s works, which questioned the Namboodri tradition of secluding adolescent girls and marrying them off without their consent, often to older and married men.  Namboodri women, known as ‘antharjanams’ meaning ‘those who live inside’, had to cover their faces with palm leaf umbrellas when they went outside and wear only white clothing. Though the writer was confined to the women’s quarters due to social pressures, with the support of her liberal parents and husband she participated in the reform movements and has championed for the cause of Namboodri women all her life.

On the theme of education, R.E. Asher, in his foreword to the second edition, writes that there are two principal strands that one finds in the book. One is the real need for women to be educated – as illustrated in M.P Sahib’s ‘The Dawn of Enlightenment’ (1969), wherein a Muslim woman, Ameena, ensures that her daughter receives at least basic education the ironical intention of preserving her purity as a woman. Second is the argument about the prevalent attitude that schooling is more of an adornment as far as women are concerned and at most a passport to marriage, a means of earning a living rather than ensuring her real independence or developing her true potential as a human being, as in the case of ‘A Resthouse for Travellers’ (1998). The protagonist, ruing her marriage to a busy scientist, thinks, “When the marriage took place, she and everyone in the village considered her lucky. …But today if they knew the truth, she was just his housekeeper, nothing more, except for social occasions at college, when she was an adornment”.

In fact, the struggle that Malayali women have to undergo to lead an independent life is further underlined in K. Saraswathyamma’s Female Intellect (1948). Vilasini is a “self-willed girl who listens to know one”. Forced to abandon her studies due to financial difficulties she trains to be a typist and lands herself a job in a government office. Seeing her outspoken and bold nature some feel she is “a woman with manly qualities”. Even as Vilasini’s friends get married and have children she keeps rejecting suitors, preferring to keep her independence, notwithstanding the several jibes that come her way from even the best of friends. Her friend Vijayalakshmi says: “Tradition, circumstances, social customs, and nature’s secrets have gotten together and the woman’s brain has to surrender before all these….a sharp intellect that helps men to grow and rise up in their profession is not only unnecessary but also a nuisance to women.”

Vilasini is perhaps the closest reflection of K. Saraswathyamma, the self-confident and outspoken writer, who freely interacted with men and chose to remain single. Much ahead of her times, her honest writings were not very well received by women and she was subject to much criticism.

Of course, not all stories in the collection are set in Kerala. Malayali women settled outside the state confront a different set of challenges and perhaps the most compelling representation of them is in N.S. Madhavan’s When Big Trees Fall ‘(1993). Set in the north Indian town of Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, during the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, the story is about a group of nuns led by sister Agatha, who save a young Sikh boy and his mother while the city is burning. Hounded by rioters, Amarjit knocks at the doors of a convent for protection, with her son Joginder Singh, only to emerge two days later, cloaked in another identity to escape the violence.

The other story that highlights the spirit of the non-resident Malayali women is Sarah Thoma’s A Dream from Israel (2001) in which a young Malayali journalist from Mumbai meets a Jewish man at a film festival in Cochin and is intrigued by the story of his aunt’s love for her teacher. In Gita Hiranyan’s Ghaire-Bhaire (1998) and Madhavikutty’s Sandalwood for the Funeral Pyre (2000) the Malayali settled abroad makes fleeting appearances.

Collated and translated by Achamma Chandersekaran, a Malayali settled in Washington, D.C., Daughters of Kerala brings to the fore works of some hitherto un-translated Malayali writers, giving voice to the largely neglected aspects of Malayali womanhood. From the candid doll-maker in Karoor’s Wooden Dolls (1963) to the bitter drug addict Arya in Chandramathy’s Arya Reborn (1993), from the bold Vilasini in K Saraswathyamma’s Female Intellect to the guilty wife in Gita Hiranyan’s Ghaire Bhaire, the collection offers diverse vignettes of Malayali women and the challenges they are confronted with. The translations in themselves maintain the simplistic flavour and spirit of the original short stories giving the reader a glimpse of both the charming and challenging aspects of Malayali life.

(© Women’s Feature Service)

For Shabnam Hashmi, Vrinda Grover, Teesta Setalvad, Zakia Soman, Sheba George, Noorjahan Diwan and Mallika Sarabhai, it’s been a decade of crusade fraught with threats and hurdles, setbacks and, of course, victories. The arson on board the Sabarmati Express near Godhra – in which 58 lives were lost – followed by widespread communal violence and rioting across Gujarat in February-March 2002, proved to be an “eye-opener”, a “turning point”, a “defining moment”… Says Hashmi, the founder trustee of the NGO, Anhad, “The riots really shook me and I rushed toGujarat. I was horrified to see the number of women who had been brutally gang-raped. Right then I decided that come what may I had to do something for these women. The last 10 years have been a very unusual journey for me.” Adds journalist-activist Setalvad, who has been questioning the role of the state government during the riots, “I had been covering Gujarat since 1991 and felt that in the interest of lasting social peace and national integration, the Indian justice system must show itself up to punishing the perpetrators.”

Another activist who joined forces in the fight for justice was Zakia Soman, the co-founder of the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA). She says, “I was inspired by the grit and determination of ordinary women who had no education, no economic privileges and yet wanted to raise their voices for justice. I realised that I had to join the movement.”

For Ahmedabad-based Noorjahan Diwan, the dark days of the riots have turned out to be life changing. Even today this housewife-turned-activist can clearly recall the fear she experienced, as battles waged on the streets of her city, “It was really traumatic. We not only faced financial lows, I was even forced to put my four-year-old daughter in a hostel in order to keep her safe.”

Of course, the process of healing has been long and tough and each woman has taken a different route. Hashmi decided to engage with the community through workshops and cultural programmes; Grover, a well-known lawyer-activist, took up the case of Ishrat Jehan, who was gunned down by theGujaratpolice saying that she was involved in terror activities; while Sarabhai contested the 2009 general election as an independent candidate.

Hashmi says, “I responded to the needs of the minority community and engaged with the majority community in order to bring about a change in mindsets through training, workshops, film screenings and cultural programmes.” On the other hand, Grover was “contacted by Ishrat’s family to take up their case”. She says, “It was the conviction of her mother, Shamima Kauser, and the family’s determination to have Ishrat’s name cleared that persuaded me. They wanted their respect and dignity restored.” Last year, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up to probe the case told the Gujarat High Court that the Ishrat Jahan encounter was not genuine. After the SIT filed its report, the court ordered that a complaint under Indian Penal Code Section 302 (murder) has to be filed against those involved in the fake encounter.

Grover may have succeeded in securing justice for one family but she cautions against the politics of hate, “To fight for Ishrat’s truth was part of the battle against fascism. It’s very important to recognise the clear pattern of targeting a minority community and demonising it as the enemy. The mechanics of electoral democracy may not deliver justice and that makes the legal battle important so that the killers and their masterminds are unmasked and punished.”

Even Setalvad has spent the last decade trying to expose the people behind the heinous violence that was unleashed in 2002. “What provoked me to fight for the riot affected was the sheer scale and bestiality of the violence; of the premeditated pattern in which people were targeted in 300 locations across the state’s 19 districts,” she says. Setalvad may be fighting a bevy of fake cases slapped against her for her audacity to question the powerful but she is forging on, “My conviction that a victim can transform into a survivor, who deserves justice and reparation, has enabled me to stand by the truth. I also believe that the equality and non discrimination provisions in the Indian Constitution can deliver justice and hope.”

If Setalvad has reposed her faith in the democratic system, so have numerous victimised Gujarati Muslim women, and this has inspired Zakia Soman into action, time and again, “The most consistent and courageous fight against the communal forces has been put up by the Muslim women of Gujarat. In early 2002, I remember how angry these women were living in the relief camps. And yet remarkably they also had hope. ‘So what if the state government is communal, we will go to parliament’ – this was a statement I heard very often during those days.”

Over the years, Soman and the BMMA have taken out rallies and sat on ‘dharnas’ with ordinary Muslim women – mothers, wives, and sisters of POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) detainees and riot survivors – participating in large numbers. “They kept up faith in democracy and fought. ‘Hame insaf chahiye (we want justice)’ has been their only motto,” says Soman.

Another Ahmedabad-based activist and trained speech therapist, who went into the relief camps, post-riots, is Sheba George. She says, “At the Shah Alam relief camp it was painful to see the victims. These riots shattered hundreds of families, affected the lives of so many people, especially pushing Muslim women to the very edge. We had to come forward and help. It was an inner calling.”

Sarabhai, too, followed her gut when she decided to contest the general elections in 2009. She felt that the Parliament was the best platform for ushering in change; for highlighting the problems being faced by the oppressed, voiceless women of her state. In fact, after the carnage inGujarat, one of the first voices to be raised in protest was that of this accomplished classical dancer. She says, “Today, certain forces have misconstrued the very idea of Hinduism. It’s supposed to be about inclusiveness, acceptance and tolerance. I wanted to change perceptions.” Sarabhai was defeated in the elections but hasn’t lost her positive outlook, “I continue to work for the people, and speak out on what’s been happening here.”

Incidentally, all of them have either received threats or have been booked under false cases. Says Diwan, who has been working for “quami ekta” in the relief camps, “There were times when even well-wishers suggested that my family and I shift out of Ahmedabad for our safety. But I have vowed to stay on and get justice for those who have been ruined in those riots.”

Soman and her team have also faced plenty of hurdles. “We have not only received direct threats and lewd remarks from the majority community, but have faced lot of difficulties from conservative Muslims, who could not digest the fact that women were standing up and fighting. They called me and some of my women colleagues names and started questioning our dress code, our hairstyle. But supported by the survivor women we were undeterred.”

(© Women’s Feature Service)

Farida felt that her inability to speak (and hear) was the cause of her sexual abuse. For years, she went through feelings of anger, guilt and isolation. Then she joined The Deaf Way Foundation, an organisation committed to educating, empowering and advocating for the deaf community inIndia. She saw that she was not alone and, to some extent, that helped her overcome negative feelings about herself.

The UN defines violence against women as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life”.

Violence against disabled women has an added dimension. It is a silent act because, in a majority of cases, the woman either does not realise she is a victim or does not talk about the violation(s) she has faced. Often, even if it is communicated, people do not believe them. In most cases the perpetrators are not brought to book. Nancy Smith, quoting a study by the Center for Research on Women with Disabilities, Baylor College of Medicine, USA, states that women with and without disabilities experience equally high rates of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. However, women with disabilities (WwDs) reported a larger number of perpetrators and the duration of their abuse was longer.

Mohapatra and Mohanty conducted a study in Orissa that covered 729 physically and mentally challenged women. The authors describe two levels of violence against WwDs: One, of a lack of visibility and the other, a lack of opportunity in relation to men with disabilities. Disabled women thus face double discrimination. The first is that women-friendly laws and services exclude them. Second, society puts obstacles in their way preventing them from performing roles of responsibility and realising themselves as women, mothers and companions. The authors feel that the relative isolation in which WwDs live increases the potential for physical and emotional abuse. They quote other reports fromIndiato show that sexual abuse (including incest) is quite common among women with mental and hearing disabilities.

What do the numbers show? According to the 2001 census, over 21 million people (about 2.1 per cent of the population) have some form of disability. According to the UN, in most countries, 10 per cent of the population has one or another form of disability.India’s low percentage could be either because of faulty enumeration or the cultural silence shrouding the issue (the Census of India 2011 proactively worked to correct this lacuna by training its enumerators). In 2001, inIndia, there were 9.3 million WwDs (or about 42-43 per cent of the total disabled population).

Despite the numbers, their voices remain unheard and the existing legal framework fails to address their problems. Data has been collected for five types of disabilities; people with disabilities in speech and hearing account for 7.5 per cent and 5.8 per cent, respectively. The proportion of women is higher in both categories.

Simran (name changed) shared how she was sexually harassed while working in a private company. She used to work in a small team on specific projects. Simran (then 22 years old) was uncomfortable with one of her colleagues. Without exactly knowing why, his words and gestures put her on edge. She confided this to a friend. The friend explained to Simran the meaning of the (sexual) words and gestures he had used and advised her to avoid him. Simran moved to another department, and when the colleague demanded to know why, she firmly explained to him (in sign) that she was not interested in making their relationship more intimate. He left her alone after that. Simran remembers feeling fear, hurt and helplessness. She found out later that other women had gone through similar experiences. However, at that time, she had no way of dealing with her sense of isolation as she did not know how to talk about it in her predominantly hearing workplace.

Given the enormity of the problem, The Deafway Foundation decided to organise a training of trainers’ workshop, in which I participated as a trainer. Sessions on various issues were conducted in sign language. Over months, the participants discussed gender, violence against women and sexuality. They also underwent step-by-step training to improve their facilitation skills.

We would introduce new concepts and wait for the flurry of reactions. Their hands, eyes and bodies would convey their thoughts and feelings. No one hesitated to express their disagreement or ask questions. As the “hearing” person, I was in the minority, and got a taste of how we, the loud majority, keep the non-hearing on the fringes of society.

The sessions on sexuality and violence led to intense discussions. The participants were familiar with the canvas of the deaf world; it shocked them to realise violence happens to hearing women too. They discussed fear and “weakness”. Why do (deaf) women get scared to be out in the dark? Why are they unable to stop abuse? Can deaf women be safe? Women are weak and really, there is nothing anyone can do (a statement, not a question).

We debated terms like strength and weakness, disempowerment and power, courage and cowardice. Everyone shared personal instances of violence; we would talk about how violence affects the way women think and act. Women are always vulnerable to attack and disability of any kind compounds the situation, leaving her drained of the energy to reclaim her body and soul. In life, no one tells her how to leave behind pain, anger and bitterness and move to a place where she can tap into her inner steel. They have to build their own strength, take help from each other to be able to cope and believe in themselves.

Women have to act to change society’s ideas of who they are and what they are capable of doing. WwDs have to work doubly hard to communicate to and shake up a largely uncaring world. By the end of workshop, the group seemed to be convinced about this.

Farida’s and Simran’s narratives are true stories. They were participants at the workshop. They were both affected by the violence; they also gathered the courage to do something about it. When Farida understood the rampant abuse that happens in deaf schools inIndia, she expressed her desire to hold sessions with young deaf girls to teach them to be safe from predatory offenders. Simran, too, passionately believes that girls need to be taught about violence and abuse and that this should be an integral part of education at deaf schools.

The problem is deep-rooted; the incidence of the crime is extensive. The world of “normates” (a word used by disability rights activists to mean those who frame rigid rules about ability/disability) needs to get more sensitised about the vulnerabilities of disabled women. And then take a stand. On the one hand, they could support the struggles of these women to overcome widespread discrimination; on the other, they could also proactively try to prevent such violence.

This would go a long way in blurring the lines between “us” and “them” and move towards creating a more equal world.

(© Women’s Feature Service)

]]> http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/india-voicing-anger-silently-challenging-violence-against-deaf-women-nandini-rao/feed/ 0 http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/india-how-south-asia%e2%80%99s-women%e2%80%99s-movement-voted-on-the-sri-lanka-resolution-ponni-a/ http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/india-how-south-asia%e2%80%99s-women%e2%80%99s-movement-voted-on-the-sri-lanka-resolution-ponni-a/#comments Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:16:16 +0000 India Current Affairs http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/?p=113958  On March 22, 2012, a Resolution was tabled at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) urging Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) and asking its government to provide a viable plan towards this end.

The LLRC recommendations have covered many issues, including the need for further investigations into violations committed during the war, the introduction of a Right to Information Act, assistance for the displaced, addressing demilitarisation and disarmament of armed groups and the need for a political solution in the region. This Resolution at the UNHRC, brought forward by theUnited Statesand co-sponsored byFrance,Norway,NigeriaandCameroon, was supported by theUKas well.

For many weeks in the run up to the tabling of the Resolution, the Indian government chose to remain silent on the issue. Meanwhile, pressure was building on it, not just from political parties in Tamil Nadu, particularly the UPA’s coalition partner, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), but from civil society organisations withinIndiaandSouth Asia, including many women’s groups and individual activists.

So when the Resolution was tabled andIndiavoted for it – albeit after introducing some amendments to water it down – it was seen as an important moment in the struggle for human rights inSouth Asia. True, the Resolution in itself was regarded as far from ideal. Award-winning Sri Lankan Women’s Rights Activist Sunila Abeyesekera, in fact, commented that it was “extremely weak” and disappointing for Sri Lankan human rights defenders. And V. Geetha, feminist historian and activist from Tamil Nadu observed that “as expected there is no reference to an independent international mechanism to probe alleged violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law during the war’s final phases”.

But in spite of the weaknesses of the document, some saw the Resolution as an opportunity to address the glaring flaws in the LLRC report. A statement released by the North East Women’s Network in Sri Lanka on International Women’s Day 2012 read as follows: “The LLRC report is far from what is required if this country is to move forward…The LLRC was also not sensitive to women and the vulnerabilities that they have been placed in even though women were the majority of those who testified at the LLRC sessions. We, the North East Women’s Network, call upon the UN and its member states to helpSri Lankaon its road to reconciliation and peace through accountability and justice and to strengthen its domestic mechanisms by ensuring international monitoring. We call upon theSriLankanStateto view the proposed resolution at the UN Human Rights Council as a tool for the implementation of its vision for a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic community and for ensuring long lasting peace for the women who have lost so much and continue to suffer.”

Others, like Sithara Shreen, a Sri Lankan Women’s rights activist, saw the Resolution as a first step. As she put it, “Many of us feel that the US-sponsored Resolution is just an opening to move forward towards an accountability process in order forSri Lankato address its bitter past andIndia’s support in this regard is very vital.”

Amidst all of this, Indian women’s rights activists from across the country brought out a statement that urged the Indian government to vote in favour of the Resolution. It said, “When the Government of Sri Lanka released the report of the LLRC in December 2011, a spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India welcomed it and expressed hope that its Recommendations would be implemented by the GoSL… We sincerely hope that the Government of India will follow through on its own statement by supporting this resolution, and strongly urge it to do so.”

This statement was signed by various eminent women’s rights activists, including Farah Naqvi, Member National Advisory Committee; Usha Ramanathan, eminent expert on Human Rights and Law; Dr Uma Chakravarti, historian and activist; advocate Vrinda Grover; and Dr Mary John, Centre for Women’s Development Studies.

Through the process of signing this statement, a broad-based discussion between various Indian feminists emerged, which looked at various issues, including the silence on the sexual violence perpetrated on women in the LLRC recommendations. They noted that Tamil women inSri Lankafaced sexual violence and continue to do so, not only within the home but also from the military, police and other security forces that hold immense power in the northern and eastern regions. Many of these women are today single-handedly managing the economic burden of running their households in the absence of the men, against a backdrop of increased militarisation.

These women, it was noted, are still awaiting any mechanism that can help them find their disappeared relatives and friends. Yet, humanitarian groups and civil society organisations that seek to address these everyday concerns are unable to function freely because of the restrictions imposed on them. The passing of the UN resolution, it was hoped, will make for some positive changes. As Rohini Hensman, Sri Lankan writer and activist who lives inIndiaand writes extensively onSri Lanka, puts it, “The measures recommended by the Resolution are especially important for the women of the North and East. They should not be seen as passive victims; in fact, they are making heroic efforts to rebuild their shattered lives and communities. But these efforts are being frustrated at every turn by the state.”

This UN Resolution was one of the few remaining opportunities to initiate a process of reconciliation in the violence-scarred island nation. It is only a small step. But given the helplessness of thousands of Tamils still living in a horrific post-conflict situation, even the smallest of developments matters a great deal.

At the very least, the international debate that built up on the alleged human rights violations of the Sri Lankan government would perhaps not have taken place without this Resolution.

As for the women activists ofSri LankaandIndia, it was a moment of coming together and raising voices in unison.

(© Women’s Feature Service)

The Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls (RGSEAG), or Sabla, is a centrally sponsored scheme aimed at all-round development of adolescent girls of 11-18 years. The focus is all out-of-school adolescent girls. It aims at making them ‘self-reliant’ by improving their health and nutrition status, promoting awareness about health, hygiene, nutrition, adolescent reproductive and sexual health, family and child care and facilitating access to public services through various interventions such as guidance and counselling and vocational training. It also aims towards mainstreaming out-of-school adolescent girls into formal/non-formal education. Nearly 100 lakh adolescent girls per annum are expected to be benefitted under the scheme. It has been introduced in the year 2010-11 on a pilot basis in 200 districts from all the States/UTs.

The Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY) is a Conditional Maternity Benefit (CMB) centrally sponsored scheme for pregnant and lactating women. Under this scheme cash incentives are provided to for improved health and nutrition to pregnant and nursing mothers. The beneficiaries are paid Rs. 4000/-in three installments per head,  betweenthe second trimester and till the child attains the age of 6 months, on fulfilling specific conditions related to maternal and child health. Pregnant women of 19 years of age and above are entitled for benefits under the scheme for first two live births. This does not include Government/ PSU (Central and State) employees. The scheme was introduced in October, 2010 on pilot basis in 52 selected districts and is being implemented using the platform of ICDS. The grant-in-aid is released to States/UTs, while cash transfer to beneficiaries is being made through Bank Accounts/ Post Office Accounts subject to the beneficiary fulfilling specific conditions. Around 12.5 lakhs pregnant and lactating women are expected to benefit under the scheme every year. In 2011-12, Rs 293.83 crore has been released to the States/UTs for implementation of the scheme.

In addition, the Priyadarshini scheme is an IFAD assisted pilot project for Women’s Empowerment and LivelihoodsProgramme in the mid Gangetic plains. It aims at holistic empowerment of vulnerable groups of women and adolescent girls through formation of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and promotion of improved livelihood opportunities. The programmeis implemented in 13 blocks spread over five districts in Uttar Pradesh i.e Baharaich, CSM Nagar, Raebareli, Shravasti andSultanpur and two districts Madhubani and Sitamarhi in Bihar. Over 100000 households are planned to be covered under

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the project and 7200 SHGs will be formed during the project period ending 2016-17. The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) is the lead programme agency for the implementation; funds are not given to the State Governments.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development has also launched the Support to Training and EmploymentProgramme (STEP) in 1986-87 with the aim of upgrading skills of women for self and wage employment. The target group includes the marginalized assetless rural women and urban poor. Special focus is on identified focal districts in which women are particularly disadvantaged. The project duration is for 5 years with beneficiaries’ ranging from 200-10000 and a maximum per capita cost of Rs 16000. The funds are directly released to different NGOs and not to the State Governments.

The Government of India has also launched the National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW) for holistic empowerment of women. This is a centrally sponsored scheme conceived as an umbrella Mission with a mandate to strengthen inter-sectoral convergence and facilitate the process of coordinating all the women’s welfare and socio-economic development programmes across ministries and departments. The Mission is mandated to facilitate the processes that contribute to economic empowerment of women, eliminate violence against women, social empowerment of women with emphasis on health and education, gender mainstreaming of policies, programmes and institutional arrangements and awareness generation and advocacy for bridging information and service gaps.

Details of funds released and utilized under various schemes during each of the last three years and the current year are given below:

** Utilization Certificate is not yet due, activities under the Mission have started in some States/U.Ts

This was stated by the Minister for Women and Child Development, Smt. Krishna Tirath in a written reply to a question in theLok Sabha

Women Education is one of the important components of UGC policy of Equity and access. The UGC has launched the schemes of financial assistance to Universities and Colleges for construction of women’s hostels, financial assistance for establishment of Day Care Centres to help women to continue their academic career, Indira Gandhi Scholarship to Single Girl Child; assistance for capacity building for women managers in higher education; Post Doctoral Fellowships for women; establishment of Women’s Studies Centres and additional assistance to Universities & Colleges with more women enrolment to encourage the enrolment and participation of women in higher educational institutions.

This information was given by Dr. D. Purandeswari , Minister of State for Human Resource Development in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha

Women & Education: The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) has had positive outcomes for girl child education leading to an increase in the gender parity index( GPI) in primary (0.94) as well as upper primary (0.92) education, Enrolment of girls at primary level and upper primary level increased over the years. Data also shows that the number of girls in schools in the age group of 5-14 years has increased from 79.6 per cent in 2004-05 to 87.7 per cent in 2009-10. Similarly, the number of girls in the educational system in 15-19 years age group increased from 40.3 per cent to 54.6 per cent over the same period. The challenge is to translate the high enrolment into high attendance rates.

The National Literacy Mission or Saakshar Bharat targeted female literacy as a critical instrument of women’s empowerment. This has led to an increase in literacy amongst women from 53.67 per cent (Census 2001) to 65.46 per cent (Census 2011). For the first time, out of the total of 217.70 million literates added during the decade, women (110.07 million) out numbered men.

Women & Health: Implementation of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) has resulted in an improvement in many development indicators for women. As per the India Human Development Report, fertility rates have come down and have reached replacement levels in a number of states; Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) has come down to 212 per 1,00,000 live births in 2009 from 301 in 2003. Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), though still high, has fallen to 50 per 1000 in 2009. Institutional deliveries have risen from 39 per cent in 2006 to 78 per cent in 2009. Women & Economy: An important strategy for financial inclusion of women, which is crucial for their integration into the economy, has been micro-finance. The model encourages access of SHGs to banks both as a means of savings and as providers of loan services. By March 2010, 69.53 lakh Self Help Group (SHGs) including those formed under the SGSY had been covered under the National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development’s (NABARD) SHG-bank linkage programme. Of these 76 per cent are exclusively women SHGs, accounting for 72.5 per cent of savings and 82 per cent of outstanding loans.

Promoting Gender Mainstreaming Through Gender Budgeting (GB): Recognizing that women, constituting 48 per cent of India’s population, lag behind men on many social indicators like health, education, and economic opportunities and warrant special attention due to their vulnerability and lack of access to resources, GB, as a tool for achieving gender mainstreaming, has been adopted by the government in 2005. The magnitude of GB allocations as a percentage of total budget has also gone up from 2.79 per cent in 2005-06 to 6.22 per cent in 2011-12.

National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW): The NMEW, an umbrella mission to strengthen inter-sectoral convergence and facilitate the process of coordination of all the women’s welfare and socio-economic development programmes across ministries and departments, was launched on 8 March 2010 to ensure economic and social empowerment of women. The NMEW is piloting the ‘convergence model’ across the country in 32 select districts with the aim of bridging the gap between demand and supply of women-related services by undertaking realistic estimates of the demand, creating greater awareness about women-bsed schemes and programmes of the Government, augmenting the demand for various services/schemes for women, and connecting them with the service providers. The model includes introduction of convergence-cum-facilitation centres for women at district, tehsil/block and village levels. The first such pilot convergence project was launched in Pali district in Rajasthan on 16 September 2011 with the opening of 150 village-level centres.

For some answers, I visit Jhakaron ki Dhani village, which lies 25 kilometres fromJodhpurin western Rajasthan. There I meet, Shamu Meghwal, who epitomises the health problems that many young women in her community experience. Married at 13, she had her first baby when she was 15. Now 25, she is the mother of four and has just lost her husband. She is visibly anaemic and complains of chronic weakness including back and abdominal pain. In Jhakaron ki Dhani, early marriage and motherhood is certainly the norm.

Dr Kanta Tiwari, a renowned gynaecologist, who has been working inJodhpurand its surrounding areas for the past four decades, is familiar with the situation in Jhakaron ki Dani. “The women here are already at a lower level of health when they get pregnant. They don’t receive proper nutrition throughout their lives. This makes them even more anaemic resulting in long-term consequences for their health and that of their newborns,” she says.

As per UNICEF data, it is estimated that more than half of all married women inIndiaare anaemic and one-third of them are malnourished, with a body mass index below normal. Moreover, only 46.6 per cent of mothers receive iron and folic acid for at least 100 days during pregnancy, and Rajasthani women are no exception.

“In village women, the protein intake could be even lower because women here seldom have pulses. In this region, there are local fruits like ber or the Indian jujube (Ziziphus mauritiana), which grow in abundance and provide some much needed nutrition,” elaborates Dr Tiwari. Ber, incidentally, is a hardy minor fruit crop that is rich in Vitamin C.

Agriculture and animal husbandary are the chief sources of income in Jhakharon ki Dhani, and because of its close proximity toJodhpur, it has a middle school and access to electricity, tapped water, telephones and roads. Some of the villagers have gained employment in nearby sandstone mines and in the local government as well. The main crops that grow in this village, which spreads across 852 hectares in the Narva panchayat, are millet, wheat, sorghum, moong, moth beans, cumin and seasonal vegetables, all of which figure in the local diet.

Today, Meghwal and her sister-in-law, Santosh, are sharing a ‘thali’ (plate) of ‘raab’ (ground bajra cooked in buttermilk), moth beans vegetable and ‘bajre ki roti’ (millet flatbread). Depending on income levels, seasonal vegetables such as cauliflower and cabbage, or sweets like ‘halwa’ made of wheat flour, ghee and jaggery or ‘churma’, made by crushing wheat ‘chappatis’, ghee and sugar, are also included. These are certainly wholesome foods but sadly women and girls usually eat last in the family and this could mean that they end up eating the least too.

Despite the legal age of marriage for women inIndiabeing 18, the average age of marriage in Rajasthan is 17 years, and thevillageofJhakaronki Dhani reflects this trend. Santosh, for instance, was married at 17 and now has three children. Her second pregnancy resulted in a stillborn. Meghwal’s younger sister-in-law, Bhagwati, 22, who was married at 13, has two small kids. She confesses to suffering from some gynaecological problems and frequent spells of dizziness. As experts point out, too many children and too frequent pregnancies, result in women not being able to recover from one pregnancy to the next in terms of nutritional status and iron stores.

Given that only about half the number of new mothers get antenatal care from a health professional, and only about one in three receives postnatal care within the first two weeks of giving birth, it is no surprise that women in this village get hardly any medical attention. Most of them give birth at home with the help of a midwife and resume their household chores, including strenuous ones like sweeping and washing, within a week of childbirth. Some even toil in the fields in the harsh desert climate of theThar desert.

Chuki Devi, 45, who married at 17, can consider herself a little luckier. She is amongst a handful of women in Jhakaron ki Dhani who has had all her four kids in a hospital. Mohani Devi, 30, also had her caesarean section in aJodhpurhospital. The only reason she says the family members decided to take her to hospital was because she had suffered an abortion earlier and they didn’t want to take any chances. This was also why Mohani’s mother-in-law spared her laborious household duties for two months after the delivery. Unfortunately, in contrast, her sister-in-law, Chanani Devi, 35, who gave birth to her four kids at home, had to resume household chores a week after her delivery each time. This could be a factor for the constant back pain she now endures.

Their mother-in-law, Sua Devi, 72, is the one who supervised their diet during pregnancy and after delivery. Generally, for the first seven to 10 days after giving birth, women in Jhakaron ki Dhani are not allowed milk. In most homes, new mothers are fed a fairly large-sized ‘laddoo’ made with wheat flour, ghee, almonds and other dry fruits, jaggery, sonth (dried ginger powder), ajwain (Trachyspermum ammi) and gond (edible gum) twice a day for about a month-and-a-half after delivery.

According to Dr Tiwari, the laddoo, which can weigh about 200 grams, is a rich source of calcium, iron, vitamins and proteins, “The new mother is also fed turmeric, which has antiseptic properties, and given ‘bajre ki roti’ with vegetables. Sometimes pulses and lentils or porridge made of wheat or millet is eaten for lunch.”

While there is some attempt to provide an expectant mother with nutritious food during her pregnancy, women generally eat poorly. Take Munni Devi, 35, who was married at 10 and had the first of her four children at 15. Today, she can only afford two meals a day, just enough milk for tea, and pulses/lentils once a week.

A lifetime of poor eating is responsible for the malnutrition endemic in this area, and this in turn impacts the levels of maternal and infant mortality. “We have low birth weight babies and premature babies here, all of which indicate the poor nutritional profiles of their mothers,” observes Dr Tiwari.

Dr Pratibha Sharma, who has been a practicing gynaecologist in Jodhpur for nearly 16 years and runs a 12-bed nursing home, also reports cases where the woman is anaemic, physically poorly built or has had an early miscarriage and would tend to go into postpartum haemorrhage requiring blood transfusion.

But change is in the air, even in a village like Jhakaron ki Dhani, and education is proving to be the real game changer. According to Dr Tiwari, with more girls getting educated, women are becoming mothers much later than they did a generation ago. “First time mothers are now between 20 and 22 years of age, earlier they used to be between 16 and 18 years old,” she says.

This augurs well for young girls like Chuki Jhakhar, 17, who is appearing for her Class XII exams, bucking the traditional early marriage trend. More and more girls like her are now studying and even educating their mothers and aunts.

Empowering rural women in villages like Jhakaron ki Dhani, through education, employment, easy access to healthcare and sensitising them about the importance of institutional deliveries could go a long way in preventing infant and maternal deaths and putting India on to the path to meeting the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal targets for maternal mortality ratio, infant mortality rate and the total fertility rate.

(© Women’s Feature Service)

]]> http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/india-the-lost-mothers-of-rajasthan-neena-bhandari/feed/ 0 http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/india-mainstreaming-malnutrition-in-the-political-agenda-in-odisha-elisa-patnaik/ http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/india-mainstreaming-malnutrition-in-the-political-agenda-in-odisha-elisa-patnaik/#comments Thu, 08 Mar 2012 02:42:16 +0000 India Current Affairs http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/?p=112067 Malnutrition is one of the major issues Odisha has been grappling with for several years and successive governments in the state have come in for severe criticism on the handling of this issue from different quarters, including the National Human Rights Commission and the Supreme Court.

Natural calamities have made a dire situation, worse, especially since agriculture continues to be the mainstay of the state’s economy with over 60 per cent of the population still dependent on it, although its share in the Gross State Domestic Product had declined to a low 18 per cent in 2009-10.

Of Odisha’s famine-hit districts, the six tribal-dominated ones – Kalahandi, Koraput, Balangir, Malkangiri, Phulbani and Rayagada – have witnessed recurring droughts since 1965. Although the Odisha Economic Survey 2010-11 has stated that the coastal region of the state registered a decline in poverty, in the southern and northern regions poverty and hunger levels remain very high, especially among the Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Scheduled Castes (SC) which comprise 70 per cent of Odisha’s poor.

This January, the state government, after a review of the supplementary nutrition programme for containing malnutrition, stated that although there has been a decline in the number of underweight children below the age of three years, a great deal more needs to be done. It argued for better synergy between the various food security programmes that currently exist in the state and for a greater involvement of the community in addressing the issue.

It is against this background that we need to ask two central questions: How can Odisha do better? And how can the state’s legislators play a more dynamic role in addressing the concern? Clearly, there is a need for greater commitment and consensus from legislators across the political spectrum. Baijayant Panda, an MP from the ruling Biju Janata Dal and a member of the advocacy group, Citizens Alliance Against Malnutrition (CAAM), agrees. As he puts it, “It helps if broad political support is created.”

What tends to happen typically is that issues of hunger and malnutrition polarise political responses. Says Bidyut Mohanty, of the Right to Food Campaign, Orissa chapter, “Very rarely do political parties come together to discuss long-term strategies. Discussions in the Assembly happen only when starvation deaths occur during which the Opposition tries to score points over the Ruling Party and the Ruling Party denies the same.”

In fact, Special Commissioner on Food Security, Harsh Mander, after a recent meeting with the Odisha government, is reported to have observed that the discussion should not be about how a person died, but on whether hunger prevails in the area from where the allegation of starvation deaths came.

Talking to individual legislators, however, reveals that whatever their political stance may be, they understand the issues well and everybody, regardless of affiliation, believes that action on malnutrition is required urgently. Says Prasad Harichandan, a Congress Party MLA from Odisha’s Satyabadi constituency, “The malaise goes deep beyond inadequate intake and frequent disease to alrger issues at the household and community level and we need to debate its reasons,” says Harichandan. As an example, he cites the situation in Balangir, where irrigated land is as low as three per cent resulting in high levels of out-migration and high levels of poverty and hunger. Harichandan also refers to the Wadhwa Commission Report’s observation that the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) in the state is not functioning optimally and as a result the targeted beneficiaries are not able to benefit from this food safety net programme.

Panchanan Kanungo, three times MLA from Gobindpur constituency, who was once the state’s finance minister, argues for more depth in legislative discussions. “Food security has many dimensions – food availability, food distribution, the purchasing power of people, and so on. Unfortunately, the discussion invariably remains limited to routine matters and at a superficial level, with not many displaying a keenness to go into the structural aspects of poverty and food insecurity,” he says.

Is there then a possibility then for legislators to recast their responses to the issue? Baijayant Panda feels that this is indeed the need of the hour. He argues in favour of exposure visits, much like those undertaken at the national level by Members of Parliament in the Citizens Alliance Against Malnutrition, despite their having come from different parties. In fact, theAllianceis currently drafting a national policy and action plan to alleviate malnutrition.

Together with education and exposure visits for MLAs, there should also be regular interaction between the government, academics, civil society representatives and the media on food security. “We can think of joint efforts with editors and political leaders across the spectrum to help project the issue’s importance,” says Panda, and also recommends proactive interventions to harness the powers of the market and civil society.

Kanungo agrees that educating and sensitising the MLAs could go a long way in improving not just the quality of debate in the assembly, but action on the ground.

One way of doing this, according to Mohanty, is to make available to state legislators qualitative and quantitative data on a regular basis. He adds, “The reduction and elimination of malnutrition and hunger in constituency areas should also feature in party manifestoes.”

The United Nations system inIndiahas supported the formation of the Legislative Forum for Human Development (LFHD) to facilitate greater debate amongst policy makers at the state level on human development issues, including malnutrition. It has also created linkages between state legislators and national parliamentarians, as well as conducted state-level workshops to engage legislators.

Many of the younger MLAs are optimistic that they can indeed help to change ground realities. Take Harichandan, a recipient of the first ever Best MLA Award by the Orissa Legislative Assembly in 2002, for instance. He believes that voters should choose only those representatives who will take forward this struggle against malnutrition. And if MLAs play their role as people’s representatives and remain accountable to those who elect them, it could help Odisha put its legacy of hunger and malnutrition behind it. Concludes Harichandan, “In the fight against hunger, we should all come together.”

(© Women’s Feature Service)

]]> http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/india-mainstreaming-malnutrition-in-the-political-agenda-in-odisha-elisa-patnaik/feed/ 0 http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/india-nutritious-cuisine-from-the-arid-earth-kitchen-tales-of-bishnoi-women-neena-bhandari-2/ http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/india-nutritious-cuisine-from-the-arid-earth-kitchen-tales-of-bishnoi-women-neena-bhandari-2/#comments Thu, 08 Mar 2012 02:39:28 +0000 India Current Affairs http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/?p=112063  Traditional western Rajasthani delicacies are fast becoming a gourmet’s delight inIndiaand abroad. In fact, no Marwari feast is complete without the “exotic” Sangari, cooked as a dry subzi or with gravy. Of course, Sangari, the fruit of the versatile Khejari (Prosopis cineraria) tree, indigenous to the vastThar desert, has provided nutrition and nourishment to the local communities over generations.

As the sun rises on the eastern skyline, Chunni Bishnoi, 65, begins milking her three buffaloes and three cows in the outer courtyard of her ‘pucca’ house, shaded by the thorny Khejari trees that grow thick and green in the villages of Guda Bishnoiyan and Khejarli, 22 kilometres and 26 kilometres, southeast ofJodhpurin Rajasthan. Guda Bishnoiyan, spread over 36578.4 bighas, has a population of 8,434 (2011 Census), while the cattle here number around 6,000.

Interestingly, the Khejari is held sacred by the Bishnois. An extremely drought resistant tree, its long needle-like nutritive fruit, Sangari, is a staple in Chunni’s home, as in every other home here. Moreover, she uses its branches as fuel, the leaves are dried and used as fodder for the cattle, the thorny twigs are used to build fences, and the wood is used to make furniture.

The women of Guda Bishnoiyan and Khejarli have mastered the optimum use of indigenous fruits and other vegetation, which have been traditional sources of survival for generations in this hot and dry land, especially during drought. Sangari is the star in kitchens here. It can be dried and stored for an unlimited period and cooked whenever required.

There’s also Kair (Capparis decidua), an ideal source of nutrition, rich in minerals like calcium, phosphorus, iron, as well as protein and carbohydrates. It is cooked as a fresh vegetable or preserved and stored for use around the year. In fact, Kair has also made it to five-star hotel menus and its pickle is exported all over the world. Kumatiya (Acacia Senegal) is another small circular, flat, black-brown fruit, which is a rich source of fibre and is commonly prepared with Sangari and Kair.

Once cooked, these vegetables can be eaten over days and don’t need refrigeration. Shobha Panwar, 18, knows this well. Compelled to quit school after Class 10, as both her parents work on construction sites, she cooks meals for her family on a wood-fired ‘chullah’ (stove). Unlike the rich folk in her village, their family has only one goat, which yields just enough milk to suffice for tea. They mostly eat ‘bajre ki roti’ (millet flatbread) in winters and ‘gehun ki roti’ (wheat flatbread) during summers with the indigenous Sangari, ‘Kachra mirchi’ (local cucumber cooked with green chillies) or ‘Kande ki sabzi’ (onion vegetable).

In fact, ‘bajre ki roti’, milk, ghee, yogurt and buttermilk (chhach) is the staple diet in these villages, where agriculture and animal husbandry are the chief sources of livelihood. Dr Neelam Wason, Professor of food and nutrition at theJaiNarainVyasUniversityinJodhpur, explains, “The preparation of traditional vegetarian Rajasthani food among the rich and poor in these two villages is almost the same. The difference lies in the consumption of other expensive items like fruit, which the rich bring home while returning from the city. Ghee, milk and milk products form an important part of rich people’s regular diet, but the poor can only afford buttermilk.”

Traditional western Rajasthani cuisine has evolved over centuries to suit the harsh climatic conditions of the region. It is sourced locally, is nutritious and has a long shelf life. Samdhu Bishnoi, 60, who lives in Chhota Guda village and has five cows and five buffaloes, lists their common foods: “Til ke laddoo (Gingelly bound into small balls with ghee and jaggery) and Rabori (Bajra cooked with buttermilk and sun-dried) can last for an entire season. Panchkuta, which includes Sangari, Kair, Kumatiya, red chillies and Goonda (Cordia mixa), can also last for weeks. Since we have plenty of milk and ghee, we make kheer (milk cooked with rice or ‘saboodana’), and ‘aata’ and ‘sooji ka halwa’ (sweet made with wheat flour or semolina).”

Shedding light on the nutritive value of these local preparations, Dr Wason, who has been working inJodhpurfor the past 30 years, says, “Cereals – wheat, pearl millet (Bajra), sorghum (Jowar), and pulses – whole and splitBengalgram (chana), green gram (moong), moth beans (moth) – are rich sources of protein and energy in their diet. Gingelly seeds and methi dana (fenugreek seeds) provide protein, energy and iron. Jaggery is a good source of iron for rural folks, while the local and seasonal vegetables provide vitamins and fibres. Kachra (Cucumis callosus), radish and green chillies, eaten raw, are a source of Vitamin C.” Therefore, it’s important to understand that despite poverty, access to good nutrition is possible if people make the right choices and vice-versa there are low cost but nutritious options available to ensure adequate nutrition. Local cooking and feeding practices also have an important role to play in the same.

To prepare food, most Bishnoi homes use fuelwood (Prosopis juliflora) or dried cattle dung cakes, barring the rich, who have gas stoves. Asha Shravan, 25, of Khejarli village, who has three children studying in a private school, is one of the fortunate ones to own a gas stove. But Baby Kumari, 38, mother of six, walks three hours daily to fetch fuelwood. Her husband works in a kirana (grocery) store and they can’t afford milk sold at Rs 30 a kilo. Even wheat is too expensive for them.

For centuries, the Bishnoi community has warded off starvation by scrupulously preserving the patches of green cover around their settlements. During the mid-15th century, this region had experienced an eight-year-long drought during which many people and cattle perished. A young man of Pipasar village, Jambaji, then realised that in the past his clan had survived drought because of the abundance of trees in the area. But deforestation had destroyed this support system.

Jambaji distilled his thoughts into 29 principles, which he taught to his people: Cut no living tree and kill no animal; grow indigenous trees like the Khejari. Their faith was famously put to the test when Maharaja Abhay Singh ofJodhpurdecided to build a new palace in 1730. The masons needed lime for the construction. There was limestone available but it had to be baked. So they decided to cut down Khejari trees for fuel but the Bishnois strongly objected.

Anxious to protect the trees, a local woman, Amrita Devi, and her three daughters ran out and hugged the trees. The Maharaja’s soldiers hacked them down. Other Bishnois came forward and they too were killed. As many as 363 people from 84 villages died resisting the onslaught. The people’s revolt forced the Maharaja to give in. The repentant king then conferred on the valiant clan the right to prevent felling of trees and killing of wildlife in their area.

The Bishnois formed a jury to oversee issues related to deforestation and hunting. The penalty was mostly paid in grain for the birds or fodder for the cattle and hunters were not allowed to take away the kill, which was buried with full rites. Of course, this was when hunting was still a sport and a royal pastime. But even today, Bishnois uphold their 500-year-old tradition of conservation in Rajasthan, tending groves of tall trees around their villages and protecting animals. Incidentally, theGudaLakenear these villages attracts hundreds of migratory birds every year.

The environment-friendly Bishnoi community can certainly teach the world a thing or two about sustainable living, conservation, and most importantly, how to extract a nutritious meal from arid environs and sandy soils.

BOX:

Local Produce Packed With Goodness

The following table lists the nutritive value of the foods per 100 gram according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

S.No    HINDI NAME  ENGLISH NAME       PROTEIN (G) ENERGY (KCAL)      IRON (mg)

1.         Bajra                Pearl millet                  11.6                 361                              8.0

2.         Gehun             Wheat                          12.1                 341                              4.9

3.         Jowar              Sorghum vulgure        10.4                 349                              4.1

4.         Suji                  Semolina                     10.4                 348                              1.6

5.         Chana             Whole Bengal gram    17.1                 360                              4.6

6.         Moong             Whole green gram      24.0                 334                              4.4

7.         Moth                Moth beans                 23.6                 343                              7.58

8.         Methi dana      Fenugreek seeds        26.2                 333                              6.5

9          Til                    Gingelly seeds            18.3                 563                              9.3

10.       Gwar phalli      Cluster beans              3.2                   16                                1.08

(© Women’s Feature Service)

By the time Maraini was 27 in 1963, she had published her first novel, Holiday, which carried a foreword by veteran Italian writer-journalist, Alberto Moravia. She has since won all the literary awards of Italy, starting with the Formentor Prize for The Age of Discontent in 1963. In 1990, she was awarded the Premio Campiello for The Silent Duchess, which became an international bestseller. Buio (Darkness) in 1994 wonItaly’s prestigious Premio Strega. More recently, she was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, in 2011, but it is not surprising that in that emphatically English-speaking club she did not go on to win.

Why have we not heard of her inIndia? That’s because we are far too narrowly immersed in the English-speaking world, and Maraini’s work that has been translated into English has not found its way here.

Curiously, Maraini, like many women artists and writers, eschews the label ‘feminist’. She is wary of ‘isms’; she would rather speak of being dalle parte, delle donne – on the side of the women. Indeed, she has worked for and with women throughout her long career. Memoirs of a Female Thief (1973), is a good example; she undertook research on the conditions of women prisoners inRome, and wrote it with Teresa, a small-time thief, sharing the royalties with her. Teresa, who was illiterate and had no way of earning an honest income, would bring her stolen gifts, and Maraini failed to convince her that it was wrong. The book was made into a film with the same title in 1974, directed by Carlo di Palma, with Monica Vitti in the lead.

Her continuous interest with women on the margins led to a play, Dialogue between a Prostitute and Her Client that was performed inLondon by the Monstrous Regiment at the East End Theatre in 1980-81, directed by Ann Mitchell.

Outspoken, Maraini has always been a part of the dissent inItaly. On February 13, 2011, she marched with a million Italians against Silvio Berlusconi’s denigration and belittlement of women. She says her activism came axiomatically in the post-war period when most ofItalyfaced devastation and poverty. A conservative society, the Church and State bore down oppressively; for instance, women were punished for adultery but not men (after all, women were their husbands’ property). A raped woman was not allowed to seek justice ‘because she was not the person who was offended’, and so on. It was the 1968 student’s movement that acted as a ‘moderniser’, giving Italian women rights on par with other European women, of establishing legal equality between the two genders at least on paper. She points out that women do not get equal wages still, that most do not reach the top in their careers, that violence remains an undercurrent in their lives. Not surprisingly, these themes appear in her books.

Travel has, of course, given Maraini’s worldview a more intense focus. She has travelled with Moravia and Italian film director, poet, writer Pier Paolo Pasolini to Africa, with her doing the driving. And she has visited Indiawith Moravia. Her love of travel can be seen in an evocative title of essays, The Seduction of the Elsewhere (2010). According to her, travelling is similar to writing, as the latter too is like a voyage to another world (interview by Monica Seger, World Literature Today 85, no 4); the only downside being the necessary precautions against local diseases like malaria. On this, her first visit to Kolkata, she described the shock of seeing emaciated men pull rickshaws. As she said to her interviewer Anasuya Basu, ‘why treat a human like a beast of burden?’ (The Telegraph, February 19, 2011).

What then impels Maraini to write? Her unusual upbringing and familial experiences, coupled with her undeniable talent for writing and her obsessive need to do so. She was born when fascism and Nazism held Europein thrall and her anthropologist and Tibetologist father, Fosco Maraini, insisted, “Remember, races don’t exist, cultures exist”. Her mother, Alliata di Salaparito, a Sicilian princess, was an artist whose feudal background ignited a rebellious spirit in Maraini, writing about that world in her novel Bagheria (1993). It was her father’s research on the Ainu, an ‘untouchable’ ethnic group, that took the family toJapan. Maraini, then aged six, her parents and two younger sisters found themselves in a concentration camp that was likeBuchenwald.Japan andItaly had signed a pact and Italians were expected to sign their consent to Mussolini’s fascist regime, and her parents had refused to do so. The camp was a traumatic experience; they faced starvation; it heightened her sensitivities and has led her to fight for social justice everywhere, ever since.

Maraini has always been part of the avant-garde, collaborating with Moravia and Enzo Siciliano in 1966 to found the Teatro del Porcospino (Porcupine Theatrical Co) to stage new plays, which included her La Famiglia Normale. In 1973, she founded an all women group, Teatro del Maddalena. Among her major plays is Dreams of Clytemnestra, an interesting revisiting of the Oresteia from a woman’s point of view. Her latest play, on the Mafia, makes a departure with an all-male cast, and will be staged inLondon this year. She enjoys the theatre because working with actors, directors, technicians makes it “a collective work”, while the audience “makes it a live public that changes every evening and can be participating or not – you can feel it” (interview by Monica Seger).

However significant her work may be, it is not surprising that given the dominance of the male canon in Italian literature, Maraini’s impressive body of work finds five lines in an anthology of Italian literature. She places herself amidst the neglected stream of women writers, along with her foremothers like Elsa Morante, Anna Banti and Natalia Ginzberg, as slipping out of the public gaze. She points out that Grazia Deledda, the Italian woman who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926, too, is all but forgotten today. These women hardly appear in the curricula or archives. They share this experience with women writers everywhere.

(© Women’s Feature Service)

The mainstream ‘heroine’ of today is transforming. She is going for unusual on-screen looks and roles – sometimes becoming a temptress, sometimes an activist and sometimes even a serial killer. Acts like Balan’s uninhibited portrayal of south siren Silk Smitha in ‘The Dirty Picture’ or Rani Mukherjee’s interpretation of the gritty journalist in ‘No One Killed Jessica’ or Priyanka Chopra’s femme fatale Susanna in ‘7 Khoon Maaf’ have truly marked the resurgence of female histrionics and women-centric roles.

Yes, you read right… it is indeed a strong resurgence. Because it’s not like Indian audiences have not given a ‘thumbs up’ to women-based stories in the earlier decades. Remember Nargis Dutt’s 1957 classic ‘Mother India’, where she plays a poor farmer and mother who kills her own criminal son for the greater moral good? Or Meena Kumari’s portrayal of a desperate alcoholic Chhoti Bahu, in ‘Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam’, released in 1962?

In fact,Delhiresident Ranjana Suri, 55, remembers queuing up at theatres in the city’s commercial hub,Connaught Place, to watch films like the Smita Patil-starrer ‘Mirch Masala’ and Rekha’s ‘Umrao Jaan’. “When ‘Umrao Jaan’ was released I wanted to catch its very first show. As a courtesan retracing her roots and looking for love, I think it’s one of Rekha’s best performances,” says this mother-of-two, who is a big movie buff.

The only point of comparison between female actors of then and now is the frequency with which this kind of variety is reflected in their repertoire of work. While earlier author-backed female-oriented roles were few in number and appealed mostly to the serious cinema-goer, today mass audiences are on the look-out for stuff that they consider ‘kuch hatke’ (a little different).

Last year, in particular, saw the release of a plethora of women-centric films, most of which made big bucks at the box office. Of course, 2011’s ‘Actor of the Year’ has been the talented Vidya Balan. Not only did she earn accolades for her acting as the spirited Sabrina Lal in ‘No One Killed Jessica’, her role in ‘The Dirty Picture’, released later in the year, changed the way a female actor’s body and sexuality is portrayed on the big screen. In fact, in a recent media interview, Balan has been quoted as saying: “As an actor and as a woman, it (‘The Dirty Picture’) was a liberating experience. If I was unapologetic about my sexuality before, I’m now unapologetic to the power of infinity.”

Fans have, of course, heaped high praise on Balan for her ‘bold’ performance. Delhi-based Pinky’s post on a popular magazine website reads something like this: “Bravo vidya and ekta (the producer of ‘The Dirty Picture’) for giving cinema its missing soul, the character, pivotal to any story. Vidya deserves a lot of support for her courage to live the character she portrays, extraordinary forIndia(n) cinema.”

But it isn’t as if Balan hadn’t dabbled with unusual roles earlier. She did ‘Ishqiya’ in 2010 where she brought the sharp and shrewd village belleKrishnato life and, in the process, she almost towered over a stalwart like Naseeruddin Shah. Then again she played mother to veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan, whose character suffered from the rare ageing disease, progeria, in the 2009 release ‘Paa’. And early 2012 sees her starring in another no-hero flick, ‘Kahaani’, where she plays a pregnant woman in search of her husband.

Balan’s co-star in ‘No One Killed Jessica’ and her senior, Rani Mukherjee, too, shone in her act as the strong and foul-mouthed journalist on a mission to put a murderer behind bars. This effortless actress also has some great films to her credit, including the soul-stirring ‘Black’, where her performance as a girl who is deaf, mute and blind left an indelible mark on viewers. This year, Mukherjee returns with the psychological thriller, ‘Talaash’, where she stars alongside Aamir Khan.

Another mainstream leading lady, who has been adventurous on-screen is Priyanka Chopra. Be it her action sequences in ‘Don 2’ or her interpretation of writer Ruskin Bond’s complex heroine Susanna in ‘7 Khoon Maaf’, Priyanka’s characters have gone down well with audiences. This year, she stars in Anurag Basu’s ‘Barfee’, in which she is playing the character of a mentally challenged girl.

Chopra’s co-star in the National Award winning ‘Fashion’, Kangna Ranaut, has also had the opportunity to prove herself. Her recent act as the spunky Tanu in ‘Tanu Weds Manu’ was preceded by the portrayal of a supermodel who loses everything to drugs in ‘Fashion’.

Of course, even today, there are many who may not like the idea of labelling some of these films mentioned as ‘women-oriented’. Fact is that in over a hundred years of Indian cinema, the heroine has mostly had a cosmetic presence. She was usually someone who looked pretty, who didn’t mind wearing saris and getting drenched in the rain; she was forever that sacrificing ideal – a ‘bharatiya nari’ (Indian woman). In a film of about 120 minutes, she hardly got 15 minutes to showcase her acting prowess.

While these quintessential ‘expectations’ from a leading lady still haven’t changed all that much today, increasingly there have been occasions when known male actors – like a Naseeruddin Shah or R. Madhavan – have, for a change, had to play the supporting role.

Roles apart, female actors have also started taking home better pay cheques. According to trade reports, women are not only demanding a higher remuneration, they are getting it too, although of course it’s still nowhere close to the price that the Khan trio commands in the industry.

Interestingly, financial strength has ensured that prominent female actors are no longer compelled to take up just any role that comes their way. As Balan, a self-confessed fan of Shah Rukh Khan, said in a recent interview, “Though I love him, unless I have a well-etched character, I will not accept a role in his film.” That one statement indicates the confidence level of today’s women actors.

Commentators believe this trend reflects today’s society where women are, at last, getting their due. They are competitive, ambitious and don’t mind toiling late hours to achieve their goals. Even story lines are being written to fit this image of a modern Indian woman. Anushka Sharma, in her debut film ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’, is shown as a small town girl willing to enter a reality dance show without her husband, played by Shah Rukh Khan, and she doesn’t shy away from practicing steps with other male dancers. In ‘Band Baja Baarat’, once again, Sharma competes against her business partner, played by newcomer Ranveer Singh, to succeed in her wedding planning business.

Change is definitely happening and Balan got it right when her personality comments in ‘The Dirty Picture’: ‘Filmein sirf teen cheezon ki wajah se chalti hain. Entertainment, enternainment, entertainment. Aur main entertainment hoon. (Films only work because of three things. Entertainment, enternainment, entertainment. And I am Entertainment!’

(© Women’s Feature Service)

The issue of domestic violence, which has been one of the focal points of the feminist movement for the past few years, led me to becoming active in women’s issues once again, though in a different way. This time my involvement was not restricted toGoa. As a trustee of the Lawyers Collective – the NGO which pioneered domestic violence legislation inIndia– it was my privilege to be able to participate actively in a number of consultations held across the country with feminists and women’s organisations to draft the proposed law. Listening to women passionately discuss and debate controversial clauses, painstakingly scrutinise minute details and mundane provisions and repeatedly revise drafts so as to incorporate all viewpoints and arrive at a consensus was a truly satisfying experience. This novel experiment of nation-wide consultation bore good results, for when the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA) was finally enacted by parliament in November 2005, the feminist movement was already geared up to implement this vital legislation. The PWDVA forced society to acknowledge that women in this country are indeed victims of violence in that most sacred of places – their homes.

Although the police still try to turn a woman back when she complains of harassment or ill-treatment in the home, there is no doubt that thanks to the wide publicity generated and the efforts made by civil society and the government, there is awareness of the PWDVA and its implications. Educational institutions, government departments and judicial organisations, among others, have been holding seminars and workshops on the PWDVA to disseminate information about the manner of its implementation and to encourage women to take advantage of its provisions to get relief when faced with violence in the home. Recognising that even young girls need to be aware that they need not feel ashamed to speak up if violence is done to them in the home, schools and parent-teacher associations have taken it upon themselves to organise group discussion, role playing, etc, in order to make girls aware of the remedies that are available to them.

Of course, one cannot conclude that the crimes against women graph has plunged with all the legislation and infrastructure that is now in place. My own state,Goa, has repeatedly been in the national news over the past couple of years for sexual crimes against women and children. While the high profile cases concern foreign tourists, there have been equally, if not more, serious cases of serial rapes and murders of local women, investigation of which proceeds at a slow pace.

Has my involvement with the women’s movement had a major impact on my personal life? If I were to claim that I am what I am today only because of the women’s movement, this would be less than honest because it is simply not true. I was fortunate to have been born into a home where women are respected and treated on par with male members of the family. I am equally fortunate to have married a man who has the finest regard for women, and our relationship has been one of equal partnership all the way. Yet, I must acknowledge that being a part of the women’s movement has affected me at a very fundamental level and it has had a deep impact on my personality. Listening to women recount their personal life stories, the trials and tribulations they have undergone, their heroic efforts to cope with everyday routines, especially the demands of growing children, while at the same time trying to find a measure of peace and solace in the midst of domestic strife and tension, has been a humbling experience for someone like myself who did not find herself in similar circumstances and has never known such adversity.

There has also been the joy of being part of the sisterhood of womankind – the extended community of women. The laughter and vivaciousness that accompanied the discussions at most of our meetings, the exhilaration we all felt after a successful campaign, the disappointment when yet another obstacle was thrown our way – all this made for a lasting bond, easy to evoke even years later.

Nothing illustrates this better than the Women’s Day celebrations organised inGoaevery year on March 8. The event is always remarkable because it is so different from other public gatherings and meetings. There is neither the sombre, grim, intellectual posturing of seminars and conferences, nor the shrill haranguing peculiar to political meetings. Instead, the March 8 celebration, usually held in a public maidan, is characterised by bursts of singing, dances, skits, debates, speeches, even karate demonstrations! It’s a unique expression of the contributions made by different women to the occasion and to the cause of empowering women in every situation, everywhere.

In such matters, we must always keep the plus side in mind, which is that the socio-political milieu has changed and that women have been an active part of that changing. Without our getting together, there would have been no change. While obviously there is no end-of-the-road success that we can celebrate, there can be a legitimate sense of pride and achievement, simply because without funding, without huge organisational structures, simply by being and working together, we have managed to dramatically alter our perceptions of ourselves and of what we can do, even if we have not yet succeeded in transforming our world.

(Excerpted from ‘Memoirs From The Women’s Movement In India: Making A Difference’, Edited by Ritu Menon; Women Unlimited, 2011/386 pages/Softback; Rs 350)

(© Women’s Feature Service)

In the mean time, she also got more information on the MGNREGA from other women in a local self-help group (SHG). “Two things struck me. One, that they are supposed to give us work within five kilometres of our village, and two, they had to pay wages within two weeks,” she elaborates.

But with her dues still elusive after six months, it seemed a dead end. “I had no idea what to do. Some women who also had not been paid argued that it was no use chasing this up because it would only meant wasting more time. But I made up my mind to persist,” adds Kaushal. She learnt that it was the gram panchayat that was holding back the money, so her first stop was the local panchayat office.

When the sarpanch was approached, he told her the money had been deposited in the local post office. “I still remember what we were told at the post office: ‘Rozgar guarantee mein koyi guarantee nahi hai’ (there is no guarantee in the job guarantee scheme).” That’s when some of us decided to take up the matter with the authorities at the Paraswara block office,” recalls Kaushal. She got together with 50 others – 40 women and 10 men – and tried to meet officials who just kept fobbing them off, saying the proper person was not available. “We made several trips – it was very frustrating,” remembers Kaushal. Finally, they managed to meet the Block Development Officer. “Fortunately, he was a good man and listened to us patiently. The sarpanch of our gram panchayat was called in and soon our money was released,” Kaushal ends her story with a half smile. As she puts it, finally the matter was not just about money, it was about ‘izzat’, personal honour.

Like Kaushal, there are other Baiga tribal women fighting for their ‘izzat’ in their own ways. Gita Marakam, 29, of Mugaon village, also in Paraswara block, lived life under a cloud. Everywhere she looked children were running, people were walking, but she herself needed a bamboo cane to move around because of a polio attack as a child. “Those were days before the government’s polio campaign,” she remarks wryly. Initially, the feeling of being worthless was overpowering. Every time the children around teased her about her stick, she would withdraw a little more into herself. The one person who stood by her was her father who ensured she got a school education.

Life changed for Gita when she got active in the Nari Shakti Mahila Sangh, a federation composed of SHGs in the blocks of Balaghat, Paraswara and Lamta. “More than anything, talking to the ‘didis’ (members of the federation call themselves ‘didis’, or sisters) did wonders for my self-confidence,” she says. That was three years ago. Today, Gita is recognised by her peers as an extremely successful farmer. Last year, she was able to get 16 quintals of paddy from her family’s small land holding of about three acres. Only part of the land has been converted into paddy land, on the rest of the holding she cultivates vegetables, tomatoes, brinjals and green chillies – with only a bamboo stick to help her move.

That’s not all. The extra money she made from her vegetables went towards getting her brother married. She could also save Rs 3,000 (US$1=Rs 49) to start a fish rearing enterprise. This she hopes will bring in good dividends soon but in any case she busies herself helping her brother make bricks in the family yard. The local soil is dug up and mixed with clay procured from outside. The mixture is then patted into rectangular wooden moulds and placed row by row to dry under the sun. Once done, the bricks are baked in a kiln with a wood fire.

Gita is also getting exposed to new ideas all the time because of her close association with the federation, “I didn’t know I was entitled to work on a rural employment guarantee work site as a disabled person. But the ‘didis’ encouraged me, so I approached the local panchayat office and now I get work too, and earn the same as everyone else – Rs 120 a day,” she reveals.

But Gita doesn’t see marriage on the cards. “I prefer to live as a single person. I know I will be able to live a productive life. I will rise and rise, of that I am sure,” she says.

There is a quiet authority emanating from Shanti Vike, a Gond tribal, who has emerged as an anti-alcohol crusader in hervillageofAmoliin Balaghat block. “Nasha (alcoholism) is huge issue here,” says Shanti. Initially, she would try and intervene at a personal level, but clearly that was no solution given the dimensions of the problem. “After discussions with our local women’s group, we decided to set up a small group to work towards ending alcoholism, share information on incidents of violence and keep track of new ‘thekas’ (outlets) coming up,” she elaborates.

When the group did its own survey it became clear that many women were living in great fear and penury thanks to the drinking habits of the men. They then decided to confront husbands, some of whom even argued that it is their right as men to drink as much alcohol as they pleased.

Alcoholism was ruining families, but it also impacted the community in general. “Our local post office, for instance, was in the hands of a man who was hardly ever sober. He was in charge of giving out the MGNREGA payments but couldn’t do his job properly. We decided to approach the authorities with this specific case. After some effort, we were finally able to meet the collector at Balaghat.”

The drunken postman was soon transferred. “That sent out a message that we were serious about our campaign,” says Shanti, who has experienced personal tragedy, having lost two sons to illnesses. Her “gudiya” (daughter) is the one spark in her life. “She is studying in Class Four. When she grows up, I want her to be able to talk freely about the issues that matter, just like I am doing,” says the proud mother.

These are three village women from tribal backgrounds who have taken the road less travelled in a poverty stricken region where the average land holding is around two acres or less. Says Sahana Mishra, of Pradan, who has been working to organise women here into SHGs for the last four years, “When these women come together, they realise the value of coming out of their homes and the additional income they bring gives them a new status within the family.” But biggest difference, of course, is that they can now draw strength and support from each other to face life’s many challenges.

(© Women’s Feature Service)

]]> http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/india-%e2%80%98i-will-rise-and-rise%e2%80%99-three-tribal-women-remake-their-destiny-pamela-philipose/feed/ 0 http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/thailand-thai-women-caught-between-passion-and-compassion-sudhamahi-regunathan/ http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/thailand-thai-women-caught-between-passion-and-compassion-sudhamahi-regunathan/#comments Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:02:04 +0000 India Current Affairs http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/?p=111510 The Thai government may be trying to cast away its image of being a destination for sex tourism but the Walking Street of Pattaya is blissfully unaware of this. It continues to attract girls from all overThailand, who use their bodily endowments to make their fortunes.

As the sun sets and the neon lights come on, out of the numerous massage parlours onWalking Street, and all along the lanes near it, emerge highly made up women. The offers come for foot massage, body massage, Thai massage and greater promises of love all night or ‘massage by beautiful lady’! Some of the parlours say they offer only massage. Others do not say anything. A signboard at the entrance toWalking Streetsays more. It reads: ‘Passion of Wonderful Night’.

There are young girls sitting outside the shops and interestingly many shops have uniforms for them. Some uniforms are more exotic than trousers and shirt; they are sarongs and colourful ethnic tops. Most of the girls are in their twenties. For miles on either sides ofWalking Street, stalls are set up for shopping, street carts serving exotic and authentic Thai food are doing great business and it seems like Pattaya is fully awake as the night wears on.

Says Somyos, a businessman and sports enthusiast living inBangkok, “These girls do not all belong to Pattaya. Many of them are young divorcees who come in from the north and north-eastern parts ofThailanddue to poor living conditions. They work for about 10 years and then go back to their village. Often they get married again and this time more happily because they are rich.”

Their monetary independence makes them more attractive, according to Somyos, who add that “there is not much stigma attached to their profession.” And yet, in the same breath, he adds, “We come from Chiang Mai, which is very conservative and would not let our girls into such a profession.”

As though to reinforce Somyos’s contention, Julia (her western name, which she uses for the ease of her customers) says, “I worked inWalking Streetwhen I was young. The number of years you can work there is short… the luckiest work for about 10 to 13 years. I have now taken to this.” Julia looks down at her cart where she has a variety of fruits stacked. She cuts them for you, individually or as a fruit salad. “No life is good life, it just depends on what you make of it,” she says in her broken English. Her husband left her two years after her second child was born. “InThailand, women do no fear being alone, we know that is the reality. I think my husband had married me for the money I had,” Julia observes stoically.

Is there a link between this stoicism and the relatively recent emergence of a class of women, locally known as Mae chiis, or “lay nuns”? ‘Mae’ means mother in Thai and ‘chii’ means renunciant. Not part of the Buddhist Mahasangha, which is exclusively for monks, these nuns shave their heads and eyebrows, don white robes and take eight vows, including that of celibacy, with their heart set on nirvana. Until about 20 years ago, they were treated as social rejects. Today, though, the Mae chiis have large followings. While it is rare to view a monk as a misfit in society, a woman who becomes a Mae chii did not get immediate respect.

The irony is that these women, who seek out a life of austerity and penance, are not initiated into the Sangha. This is because of a strong belief in Theravada Buddhism that women, if ordained, will be a source of distraction for the monks – so the further away you keep them, the safer is the life of a monk and his possibilities of attaining nirvana.

Punvadee Amornmaneekul emphatically refutes this. Punvadee is Secretary to Mae Chee Sansanee Sthirasuta, founder of Sathira-Dhammasathan and Savika-Sikkhalaya,BuddhistUniversity, as well as Co-Chair of Global Peace Initiative of Women. She says, “No, that is not true. I don’t know who said that but we have never heard monks say that to us. Most of the monks who follows the Buddha’s teachings will know the Buddha always said any human has the potential to get to nirvana… that means all ages and all genders can attain nirvana.”

But Punvadee admits, “We don’t get any support from the government although we do co-operate and network with them. While the monks are managed by the Mahasangha, a national board of elder presiding monks, the nuns are independent. The government supports the Mahasangha, so the monks get facilities from the government.”

Standing in no man’s land, as it were, when Punvadee says the nuns do not get any facility from the government like the monks do, she means they miss out on free education, free medical care, subsidy for travel, and so on. However, a Mae chii is denied her right to vote for she is considered a cleric for that purpose. Moreover, they are also not allowed to stay within the precincts of a Buddhist temple for they could be a threat to the monks’ vow of celibacy.

The concept of Mae chiis is very ancient and until recently there was no organisational structure for them. But today, with the society responding to their compassionate activities, their own organisations have grown and they initiate and mentor younger aspirants. “The girls and women who wish to ‘take robes’ and practice the monastic life have to apply. They are carefully screened for intention, and we invite respected or senior monks to ordain our nuns,” says Punvadee, adding, “Ven. Mae Chee Sansanee was once a top fashion model who walked the runways inThailand. But this way of life became hollow and uninteresting to her, despite the fame and wealth it brought her. She has a special interest in providing shelter to unwed and abandoned mothers, because Ven. Mae Chee’s own mother was a single woman, who raised her lovingly.” Embodying the true spirit of Buddhism, these nuns, give to the society, asking nothing for themselves.

In 2003, the government toyed with the idea of legalising prostitution and the law punishes an offender only if he “shamelessly and openly” solicits a prostitute. Thai society also cites the tradition that it is the foremost duty of a daughter to look after her parents, by whatever means it may be. However, the uncomplaining renunciant is only being understood by her compassion and not by the administration in the pleasure-seeking society. Caught between the masculine grip of passion and the fear of its arousal, this is the story of the women ofThailand.

 (© Women’s Feature Service)

Ruth Vanita

For a decade, I unwittingly followed Virginia Woolf’s advice to women writers, by leading the life of a secular nun, celibate, putting most of my earnings into Manushi, with virtually no personal or social life, working for a cause not related in any immediate way to my own being. I did a lot of writing in Manushi anonymously or using pseudonyms. My main pleasures were writing verse, reading and conversing with friends, who were colleagues either at college or at Manushi.

Like a nun, too, I received an education through work and found pleasure in work. I learnt a number of invaluable skills – translation from Hindi to English and English to Hindi, interviewing people on tape, editing, proof-reading, designing page-layout, typing at high speeds, listening and counselling. My Hindi, which was earlier of the formal kind taught in schools and colleges, improved tremendously. I also learnt to write in a way that conveys complex ideas to a general audience. This turned out to be a mixed blessing in the academy, but I still consider it a valuable skill.

One of the jobs I did at Manushi was rewriting scholarly articles from various disciplines (by scholars like Veena Das and Alaka Basu) in language our readers could understand. I also read huge quantities of Hindi fiction, in order to find and translate a story for each issue. This was enjoyable and I found some little-noticed gems like Ek Shauhar ke Khatir (which I translated as “All for a Husband”) by Ismat Chughtai, whom we also interviewed in the same issue. Those were the days before translation studies and I honed my skills entirely through practice. It was rewarding when major writers, such as Rajendra Yadav, Mannu Bhandari and Upendranath Ashq liked my translations of their stories and asked me to translate more for them.

Like a modern, non-cloistered nun, too, I came to know the city through work. As an undergraduate student, I had taken the bus from home to college and back for three years, without ever deviating from its route or spending a night away from home. The women’s movement took me to parts of the city that I would otherwise have had no occasion to visit. I spent nights at printing presses in Shahdara and Paharganj, the only woman among a dozen typesetters, as they corrected errors and rolled proof pages off the machines. I found my way by bus to far-flung residential colonies, to meet potential writers and illustrators. I spent long days interviewing a range of women, each as an activist in a slum beyond Nangloi, for our column, “One of Many”. In the middle of the night, I answered a phone call and went to photograph a just-murdered woman’s corpse, in a tiny tenement in Lajpat Nagar.

As part of small all-women teams, I made short trips to many places, such as Deorala, following the famous sati case, and spent weeks in tribal Jharkhand, rural Maharashtra, at an Arya Samaj women’s college in Punjab and, like many others, in north and eastDelhifollowing the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. And I learnt that men are not the only perpetrators of violence. One of the most terrifying moments I have experienced was in curfew-boundMeerutin 1987, when Prabha Rani and I, surveying post-riot damage, visited a gutted Muslim house and were surrounded by Hindu women, demanding to know our religion, and ready to destroy our equipment and assault us. Never have I been so glad to see policemen as when two arrived and escorted us away.

I also met many remarkable women and some men, who have disappeared from, or perhaps never appeared in, the annals of the movement. Women like Kamlesh, a young Hindi-speaking divorcee from Daryaganj, whose brothers mistreated her, and who volunteered regularly in 1980. She stopped coming over and then we heard she had died and been cremated; it seemed like a family-engineered death and we felt we had erred in not keeping better track of her. I still have a photo of her with some of us, all looking impossibly young, on the railway platform, saying goodbye to Patty, a volunteer fromAmericawho had spent a year or so at Manushi.

In those days, cameras were few and far between, so Manushi’s activities were barely documented, but snapshots of these women remain in my head. There was Pushpaji, an older, witty and fun-loving widow from Defence Colony, who came into her own once her depressing marriage ended, but was still somewhat tyrannised by her sons. There was Usha, a doctor inBombay, a single woman who had devoted her life to supporting her family, who seemed to suddenly explode or implode when catalysed by contact with Manushi. Kiran, who ran a Hindi printing press inPatna, eloped with her woman friend Khurshid to the Manushi office, pursued by Khurshid’s violent family. Manushi’s landlady in Lajpat Nagar, a feisty Sikh woman, was one of our greatest supporters; she often brought food up to us and told her two young daughters to model themselves on us. Somewhat later, Charu and Minakshi, an inseparable pair of friends, volunteered for quite a while, as did Prabha Rani, who later became a lecturer at Delhi University, and Sahjo, who went on to become a film maker. It is impossible to list all the short-term volunteers fromIndiawho worked for a few weeks, or months, in the thirteen years that I was at Manushi.

My work in the movement connected directly to my teaching. I taught mostly women students and focused on gender and sexuality in English literature; some new interpretations of texts that I later wrote about, emerged in class discussions. Over the years, many students were drawn to Manushi through me. There was Fatima, a young woman of extraordinary intensity, who lived in Daryaganj, volunteered for a while and acted in a play, until her father threatened to have a heart attack. We went to meet her family, but though they seemed reassured, their opposition persisted and she was forced to leave. More tragically, there was Jyoti, whose rebellion against her dysfunctional family led her to drug addiction; she finally jumped to her death from Jantar Mantar. In the late Eighties, there were Poonam Kaul and Uma Tiwari, reliable volunteers.

There were also several men, even less acknowledged. The Hindi playwright, who taught us page lay-out for the first issue, when our feminist volunteer failed to show up. The American demographer who helped in numerous ways, over many years. Madhu’s two brothers, always on call. Many male activists in remote regions, who wrote reports, collected subscriptions and helped with translation. I maintained a roster of volunteer translators, to whom articles were mailed out, in those pre-email days, and carried on long-hand correspondence with dozens of volunteers whom I never met in person.

Among our more enjoyable activities was aHindi streetplay, Roshni, improvised in a workshop directed gratis by Feisal Alkazi, on Manushi’s terrace, in one ofDelhi’s wonderfully sunny winters. Madhu wrote the songs; I wrote the script, based on our improvisations; and we had an ever-changing cast, which performed all over the city, from Lajpat Nagar toConnaught Placeto college campuses. I had short hair and was often mistaken for a boy on city buses, so I acted the badly-behaved prospective groom, a role I enjoyed. However, Bharati Mirchandani, a graphic artist, was inimitable in this role: her young man was dim-witted in an absurdly Wodehousian way.

(Excerpted from ‘Memoirs From The Women’s Movement In India: Making A Difference’, Edited by Ritu Menon; Women Unlimited, 2011/386 pages/Softback; Rs 350)

 (© Women’s Feature Service)

Surrounded by rugs embroidered with green paisleys, autumnal maple leaves and cherry blossoms, Arifa is a picture of poise and confidence, which belies her young age. In the busy streets of Lalbazar inSrinagar,Kashmir, a 27-year-old woman running a business is a rare sight.

In a society where shutdowns and strikes are common and violence is a part of daily life, it’s the women who are forced to lead sheltered lives. Their struggle is to keep themselves and their families out of harms way. Arifa’s lower middle-class family is no exception. Her father works in the State Transport Department while her mother manages the home. Her elder brother repairs mobile phones and her younger sister is studying.

Like other girls her age, Arifa would have finished her studies and her parents would have started looking for a groom for her. But she had other ideas. Arifa says she had made up her mind to start a business a few years back, “I always wanted to do business. When I was in high school I had made up my mind and so I graduated in commerce.”

Her unconventional journey to become an entrepreneur happened entirely by chance. Trying to find work for one of her relative’s widowed wife, she discovered the Srinagar-based Craft Development Institute (CDI), where she saw a hope to fulfill her ambition. At CDI, which provides education to young people and creates new avenues for innovation and entrepreneurship in handicrafts, Arifa could get trained in business administration and start her own enterprise. All she needed was the money to pay the fee and a nod from her parents.

At Rs 95,000 ($1900) the course fee was indeed a princely sum for her, but the tougher battle was to convince her parents. Her father, an illiterate man feared the reaction of his relatives and friends and generally of the conservative society they lived in. His only advice to his young daughter was “kuch bhi karna, par ghar ki izzat bani rahey (Do what you want, but make sure the family’s honour remains untouched).”

Arifa hasn’t looked back since that day. Convinced of her talent and zeal, the Crafts Council of India gave her a grant and she also managed to get two business partners. Mohammed Salim Sofi and Farooqh Amar Ghanai were both pashmina weavers before they decided to team up with Arifa to start Incredible Kashmir Crafts that sells hand-made ‘numdha’ rugs.

Making numdha rugs is a long and labourious process that involves carding the wool, spreading it on a grass mat and compressing it manually. The work is not just back-breaking but also leaves the artisans with bleeding palms. This, of course, is not the end – the painstaking embroidery on these merino wool rugs, done by women, is no easy task either.

Says Arifa, “I want to revive numdha making. The artisans are paid so less that they are no longer interested in this craft. These days only old artisans know this specialsed craft. The youngsters are getting educated and they are ready to do lowly paid jobs rather then this back-breaking hard work.” And Arifa wants to change all that.

She hopes to one day set up a company with artisans as shareholders so that everyone benefits from the revival of this dying craft. For now she employs 15 workers and pays them three times the amount they usually get. It was her empathy towards the craftsmen that convinced Mohammed Salim Sofi to become a partner in her business. He says, “I decided to join her because I saw she was very innovative and had her heart in this. She also has an attachment to the artisans and thought differently.”

Her other business partner, Ganai is enthused with the response their effort is getting. He also acknowledges that “the peace which has prevailed inKashmirover the last two three years has helped,” adding, “Tourists are coming and they bring business. That means artisans get regular work and they do not think of alternate employment.”

The last few months have completely changed Arifa’s life. This shy diminutive girl, who till some time back, was being reprimanded for coming home late, is now travelling on her own looking for new markets and attending exhibitions. Says the young entrepreneur, “I could only do this because of the full support of my father. Some of my relatives still do not know what I do. Even my brother doesn’t like my doing business.”

Kashmiris certainly not the easiest place to do business. But the state government is trying to help young women entrepreneurs. The social welfare minister ofJammu and Kashmir, Sakina Itoo, recently stated that the Women Development Corporation of the state (JKWDC) has been given Rs 10 crore to aid women entrepreneurs.

Accepting that it’s not been easy for Valley women to start enterprises, Dr Naheed Soz, Managing Director of JKWDC, says, “The last 20 years or so has seen the women getting housebound because of the law and order situation. The Kashmiri woman is very able and has been sewing, embroidering and doing small work from home. Now, we need them to come out and we are helping them market their products directly. Once they get the courage to stand on their feet, they will be able to succeed in their business.”

Gazalla Amin, an agricultural entrepreneur, who has an aromatic oil business, is a rare example of success. She has been in the business for the past six years and today her agri-business has a turnover of Rs 1.5 crore. She says, “Being an entrepreneur inKashmiris challenging because we are a developing society and a conflict zone and if you are a woman it’s even more so.”

Gazalla enumerates the many difficulties women like her encounter. “The finances are hard to come by, society doesn’t accept women entrepreneurs easily and it takes years before one can establish oneself. All of these make it an extremely daunting task and that’s why it’s rare to see women entrepreneurs,” she explains.

It is tough for a woman to gather enough finances because there is always a question mark about her ability to sustain her business and market her produce. Moreover, the conservative Kashmiri society doesn’t take kindly to women, who travel by themselves, are out of home for long hours – something that needs to be done to ensure success in business. “There are often problems for such women when they want to get married,” adds Gazalla.

Arifa knows that her marriage and her future is a cause of concern for her parents, too, but she brushes aside these concerns and is optimistic. She says, “I am too young to think of all this. There is still time before I get married. I think, today the mindset has changed quite a bit. Even the thinking of boys has changed. Now, I can think of becoming someone, before becoming someone’s wife.”

Surrounded by the chaos and cacophony of the alternating violence and peace in theKashmirValley, Arifa is content; she has managed to create an oasis for herself and her dreams.

 (© Women’s Feature Service)

]]> http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/india-arifa-shows-how-business-is-done-in-the-valley-renu-agal/feed/ 0 http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/global-poet-painter-sreyashi-and-her-canvas-of-change-ajitha-menon/ http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/global-poet-painter-sreyashi-and-her-canvas-of-change-ajitha-menon/#comments Thu, 23 Feb 2012 04:52:50 +0000 India Current Affairs http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/?p=110808 Combating violence against women, surviving genocide or fighting for human rights are challenges confronting populations across international borders today. However, young Geneva-based poetess Sreyashi Ghosh is using an amalgamation of the arts to focus on these issues; “to create awareness and awakening and even find closure,” she says.

‘I will overcome these ups and downs/Take life in my stride/Strike back ten times/With confidence I shall walk towards a new dawn’. These lines, voicing the determination of a victim of domestic violence, are from ‘I Will Survive’, one of the many poems penned by the 26-year-old, in her collection, ‘My Soul On A Platter’.

“Many women have not been victims of domestic violence but face oppression in their daily lives as a matter of routine. When fighting our way inside a packed bus, boarding a train or even simply walking on the pavement, elbowing men aside has become an unconscious action for most of us. There is a persistent feeling of being crowded by men. Isn’t that abuse?” asks Ghosh, adding, “Direct violence against the weak, uneducated or dependent women is not the only form of abuse. Women are pushed back, oppressed, crowded in, everywhere, every time. Ask the women celebrities, professionals or even the women drivers!”

But women are fighters and in Ghosh’s ‘Fighter’, she states: ‘I can’t give up/Nor can I give in/ I must go on, I have to win/Nothing can crush this indomitable spirit/For I know, that even in the darkness candles have been lit’. Indeed, the talented young woman has a way with the words. And her poetic works have many takers. Today, ‘My Soul On A Platter’, a product of Writers Workshop, is available in bookshops acrossSwitzerland,Canada, theUKand US. In fact, not only has the book been included in the collection of the prestigious Shakespeare and Company in Paris, it also recorded the highest sales at the International Book Fair, Geneva, in 2010.

While she may have started off with penning verses, Ghosh wasn’t sure whether poetry alone was enough to reach out to a collective conscience. “Some like reading, others prefer music and some are enthralled by painting. So after great thought, I hit upon the idea of amalgamation. I decided to bring in different aspects of art and literature together to convey my message to a larger audience,” she says.

A self-taught artist, Ghosh, who has a bachelor’s degree in Arts along with a degree in Gender and International Development, cites indigenous Maori, African and Indian art forms as her influences. Her signature pen-and-ink style first started on paper and gradually moved to canvas, glass, acrylic sheet and wood. Interestingly, her art is an extension of her poems.

Says Ghosh, whose poem ‘To The People Of R’ depicts the war-torn life of Rwandans, “When I talk about genocide in poetry I say: ‘Though weather-beaten/the survivors stand up/ they fight back/ with the beauty of love….’” And she has created a visual expression for these moving words on canvas too. “I have seen many viewers being moved by the paintings. I am happy if the audience receives the message loud and clear. If it takes painting to do that, then I will do my best to paint well,” says the artist, whose work is currently on display at the International Museum of Indigenous Art as part of Max Fourny’s collection inParis,France. In fact, she recently gave a unique presentation of her concept, ‘Words and Colours’ in Kolkata, which combined both sensory and cognitive simulations through a rendering of her poetry in cohesion with a pen and ink graphic repertoire.

If her verses form the basis of her artwork, they also inspire talented musicians. Like American songwriter William Pitt, who has set her poems to Indian ragas, and sarod player Pratap Kumar, who collaborated with her on ‘PEACE mode 365′, an initiative launched in September 2011.

Pratap Kumar, who is part of a project that “celebrates life and peaceful living through the practice of the art”, says, “‘PEACE mode 365′ is a global initiative for peaceful and harmonious living through arts and it transcends borders in building bridges in connecting artists, writers, poets, photographers, filmmakers, journalists, musicians, actors and other creative minds to build a network for sustainability through peace. I was inspired by Sreyashi’s vision to participate in the movement to promote a culture based on human rights.”

Dance, too, is a part of “communication” for Ghosh and at the Kolkata rendering of her poetry, young contemporary dancer Prasanna Saikia gave expression to ‘Return of the Bride’, that discusses the curse of dowry in Indian marriages: ‘Her bridal finery now tainted with tears/From now on, she is filled with rejection and fears/She is now cursed as an ill omen/Written off by society’. Ghosh reveals, “Both women and men in different countries have identified with the anguish of the devastated young bride, who is rejected for lack of dowry in this poem that has been translated in French, German and Spanish.”

Not one to rest on her laurels, the young woman is currently working with the Alliance Française du Bengale, Kolkata, designing a programme for International Woman’s Day in March. “My poetry will be read in the context of women rights as human rights, in the background of an exhibition and performance presentation.”

She is also sharing ideas with women ‘patachitra’ artists (scroll painters) for a fusion project detailing the relation between women and environment. “The idea is to marry my pen and ink repertoire signature style with this indigenous art form and showcase the interlinks between women, human rights, ecological sustainability and green jobs through stories based on mythological characters. The project is based on the UNESCO and UN Earth Charter mandate,” she says.

There are artists and there are activists. Ghosh, the Bengali poet-painter, has fused different art forms to propel rights activism, creating awareness through creative expression. And women are always central to her work. She says, “Equality is a gender issue. Women have to constantly prove themselves. One man will consider a woman to be his equal only if she proves herself better than ten men! From an eminent banker to an ordinary housewife, every woman seems to be constantly answerable, defending her right to exist.”

 (© Women’s Feature Service)

]]> http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/global-poet-painter-sreyashi-and-her-canvas-of-change-ajitha-menon/feed/ 0 http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/few-filmmakers-interested-in-women-leaders-meryl-streep/ http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/few-filmmakers-interested-in-women-leaders-meryl-streep/#comments Sat, 18 Feb 2012 04:01:50 +0000 India Current Affairs http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/?p=110038 Meryl Streep, who won the best actress BAFTA for her performance in “The Iron Lady”, says she instantly said yes for the movie on former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher because there aren’t many filmmakers who are interested in what it means to be a woman leader.

“When director Phyllida Lloyd told me she had a film that circles Margaret Thatcher’s life and the issues around a woman leader, I was immediately interested. There aren’t many women leaders; there aren’t many filmmakers who are interested in what it means to be a woman leader,” she said in an email interaction with IANS.

“To think about the barriers that Margaret Thatcher broke through to become the leader of the United Kingdom was to put yourself in the head of a woman in the late 1970s, when she really emerged as the leader of her party. It was interesting to follow someone who happened to be a woman solving big world problems, in a way that women were not expected to do in that time,” said the 62-year-old.

Applauding Thatcher’s grit and determination, Streep said that in real sense she broke grounds.

“I’ve watched women directors struggle with trying to be the commander. And women leaders too. We’re not quite comfortable yet with this idea. Margaret Thatcher really did break ground in that she showed a way in which a woman could be a leader,” said the multiple-award winning actress. She has received two oscars and eight Golden Globes.

“She didn’t have a problem with how to lead, and so in a way, men didn’t have so much of a problem knowing how to follow. I think when women are uncertain as to how to lead, or they’re worried about how they’re perceived or they’re worried about losing femininity, their leadership skills suffer,” added the actress.

She describes the first day on the sets of “The Iron Lady” like entering boys club and she compares the feel with Thatcher’s survival in the men’s world.

“For me as an actor, just walking into the first day of rehearsal was incredibly daunting because there were all these wonderful British actors and I was the only woman in the room and I sort of had the feeling Margaret Thatcher must have had when she walked into the Conservative Party meetings.”

Streep enjoyed shooting parliament scenes.

“The days that we were shooting in Parliament, or we were re-creating Parliament, were very interesting because how one dominates a room, how one pulls a listening audience in to persuade them of some matter of policy is something that we still struggle with as human beings,” she said.

Streep is known for her powerful performances in “Sophie’s Choice”, “Silkwood”, “Falling in Love” and “Devil Wears Prada”.

Asked what the best part about making “The Iron Lady” was, she said that the film provided an opportunity to look at a whole life.

“Because at this point in my life, you know, you do look back and you think about the whole history,” she said.

“And then you also realize that what is important is the day, this moment now… And you could argue that really the only important thing is to be in your life and in the exact moment in which you find yourself, and it’s the hardest thing in the world. It’s, you know, the Zen of it all, to really live where you are; feel it, be in it.

“We all say, when we are young, what we’re never going to do. But we all live in the same book…You know, we all begin and end. It’s an unusual ambition to aim a whole movie to that moment, the end; usually, you aim at the apogee, you aim up. And we are looking at the distillation of what it means to have a gigantic, big, full life and then to watch it subside. I mean, it’s a poem, right?”

Their small hut at one end of Ganpatkheda hamlet in Bhadesar in Chittorgarh district, Rajasthan, has two pots, and four kilos of wheat flour stacked away in a corner. “We manage to eat a vegetable like potato about half the month. The other 15 days we eat rotis with chillies,” says Bhil.

The years of working as a ‘hali’, or a bonded labourer, and a diet that verges on starvation, has robbed Bhil not just of his energy but his youth. He is pre-maturely old and frail. All his life he worked for a local landlord. Then, a few years ago, the landlord found that he was too weak to work long hours and turned him away. Today, Bhil ekes out an existence through daily wage work. This means he can only work when he is able to do so. For the last week or so, he was too unwell to work – harvesting groundnuts on a local farm – but he hopes to go back to the fields soon.

If life has treated Harlal Bhil badly, Tulsibai has also not been spared. She once tended cattle on the farm of the same landlord on whose lands her husband had slaved for so many years. But today, every move Tulsibai makes is excruciating for her. She has arthritis. In the absence of treatment, her fingers have got deformed and she is now unable to work. With the wages Bhil manages to earn once every few days, the family buys groceries to last for a few days.

Officially, Bhil and his wife do not exist on state records. They have no ration card – or an MGNREGA job card for that matter. So they procure foodgrain from other ration card holders in the village, who are willing to sell a share of their rations cheaper than the market price.

A few huts away from Harlal and Tulsibai live Ratni Bhil and her sister, Nari Bhil. They are fortunate to have youth on their side, being in their late 20s. But their lives too are circumscribed by the fact that their husbands work as bonded labourers and their households, too, are not on the radar of the government’s Public Distribution System (PDS). So they have to run the household on very little. Ratni explains how she does this, “Over the last few weeks, I have been able to get ‘methi’ leaves (fenugreek) from our landlord’s fields once a week. I dry them and keep some aside to boil. This we eat on days we cannot afford vegetables,” she says. ‘Methi’, incidentally, is only freely available in winter. So, with summer, this source of nutrition comes to an end.

Not having a ration card, Ratni’s family depends on the landlord from whom they borrowed Rs 35,000 (US$1=Rs 48.7) five years ago to procure foodgrains in bulk to keep the household going. “My husband works without wages on the farm in lieu of this debt; I go to work on the same farm three-four days of the week, too. The landlord gives us wheat once every few weeks,” she says. Rotis and black tea – milk is not available because the family does not own any cattle – is the staple diet, not just for her and her husband, but for their three little three children as well.

Both Ratni and Nari did find some work under the MGNREGA in 2010 but they express their disappointment that they did not get paid for their labour until a few months after the work got over.

In the absence of credit and any social security, they cannot but depend on the local landlords for loans to tide over expenses incurred over an illness or to meet expenses for a wedding in the family. Working on the farms from morning until evening, and often being required to live on the farm as well, these families are the first to slip through the cracks. In May 2010, the Rajasthan government began PDS reform – increasing foodgrains subsidy, delivering grains straight to ration shops to reduce scope for pilferage during transportation by ration shop dealers, fixing a week every month when ration shops must stay open, and creating a ‘state BPL list’ to extend the benefit of ration cards to a greater number of rural families. Despite improvements, groups like these Bhil families working as bonded labourers continue to be left out of social security nets.

“In the 2007 PDS survey, a government team came and collected information on 13 counts through a questionnaire. At the end of the survey, they recorded only three families as BPL in Ganpatkheda when at least 25 families should have been BPL going by the same criteria,” says Khemraj of Khetihar Khan Mazdoor Sangathan in Bhadesar, Chittorgarh, adding, “We got the district officials to revise the list but some of the poorest families are still out of it.”

The deaths of 47 Sahariya tribals due to malnutrition and hunger during the drought of 2001 had triggered a Public Interest Litigation by the People Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) in the Supreme Court. That case went on to become the basis for civil society’s demand for the right to food. But, today, over a decade later, the most vulnerable within the Sahariyas remain in a state of near-starvation.

The government has, with some prodding from the Supreme Court, tried to put a safety net in place for the poorest of the poor, but the interventions continue to be patchy. For instance, Brahmapura village in Kishanganj block of Baran district where seven Sahariyas died of starvation in 2004 now has a functioning anganwadi and local residents say they are able to claim the 35 kilos of grain they are entitled to under the Antodaya scheme. But less than 10 kilometres away, in Sevni village, families living at the edge of the village, lack even ration cards.

“We eat a vegetable two to five days every month. I try to give it to the children,” says Vimla Sahariya, whose husband Ranbir has worked as a bonded labourer on a Thakur landowner’s farm for 10 years now. Her son, Raju, 10, became a ‘hali’ last year after the family borrowed Rs 3,500 from the same landlord. The family pays interest on the cash loan as well as the wheat they take from the landlord from time to time.

It is the poorest who get left out of the distribution of public rations, which is why the argument for universalising PDS – that states like Tamil Nadu had introduced years ago – is so convincing. “The biggest concern with respect to the draft National Food Security Bill pertains to PDS entitlements. Classifying households into APL-BPL has been a disaster in both 1997 and 2002, half of the poor did not get BPL cards,” says Reetika Khera, an economist and author of a recent study on PDS. She points out that “general” and “priority” households under the proposed food act will boil down to continuing the same categories with new names.

The question – who gets left out of the PDS? – should inform policy making on this crucial front, if Harlal, Ratni and innumerable others, are to be spared the daily desperation of having to stave off the spectre of starvation.

 (© Women’s Feature Service)

 Starvation is common and rampant in Nuapada district and Komna block reflects in a microcosm all the problems that have plagued this starvation-prone region over several decades. With 78 per cent of its population belonging to below poverty line (BPL) families, Nuapada figures in the list of the poorest and most backward regions ofIndiaand food security has been a big worry here. The emergency feeding programme, one of the several initiatives of the Odisha government to address this concern, was aimed to provide food security to the old, the infirm, the children and the indigent, by giving them one cooked meal a day throughout the year through the network of anganwadis.

Like many other panchayats of Nuapada district, the anganwadi at Sabita’s village was also plagued by irregular food supply. Children were the worst affected. The quantity of food served was less than the amount stipulated in the government order. And no food was being served on Sundays. The Hunger Project, of which this writer is the director, had trained over 90,000 elected women representatives in eight states, including Odisha – women like Sabita – in governance norms and procedures. Sabita used her new learnings to urge the other elected women representatives of her panchayat to send a written complaint to the Right toFood Court, thereby setting off a chain of events. The court ordered the Secretary, Women & Child Development Department, to look into the matter. This was then put before the District Collector. The Child Development Project Officer (CDPO) was asked to take strict action and, as a result, today most of the Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) centres here are functioning properly.

Having struggled to raise families of their own, women panchayat members are eager to ensure no child goes to sleep hungry.  Over the centuries, women have played a crucial role in ensuring food security. Their multiple roles as food producers, keepers of traditional knowledge, food processors, food preparers and food providers are well documented. But poverty, coupled with social marginalisation and other vulnerabilities, have pushed many families (read women) in the rural hinterland to lower their dietary and nutritional intake, and become increasingly dependent on the public distribution system (PDS) and other state sponsored programmes such as the ICDS and Midday Meal Scheme.

When Sabita and her one million other women colleagues in 2,40,452 Gram Panchayats (GPs) across the country won the panchayat election they stood for, they inherited the monumental challenge of providing food and nutritional security not only to their families but also to their constituencies. That too at a time when agricultural output has performed well below expectation. While several food-based schemes have been implemented as per the recommendations of the Eleventh Plan, even a brief stay in any village will reveal the high level of leakages, the exclusion and the inclusion errors in beneficiary listing and the poor quality of the foodgrains received. Is food security, therefore, the outcome of only production and distribution decisions? Women sarpanchs and panchs say that good governance plays an equally critical role in ensuring food security and curbing starvation deaths in remote regions.

Take Bidar in Karnataka, which falls inIndia’s list of 100 worst districts. Out of the 18 PDS shops surveyed in 20 odd villages, only three were functioning properly. Rates were not displayed; shopkeepers added transportation and other charges. Bidar can ill afford this breakdown of service delivery as it registers the lowest per capita income in the state of Karnataka. However, ward panch Sudha Mohan of Koppa rural GP in Chikmangalur district argues that though profiteering is common, regular monitoring and action by the panchayat helps. She should know. She used her authority to issue a notice to the shop owner in her village and demanded he keep the ration shop open at fixed times to ensure supply of foodgrains to daily wagers. She even sent samples of adulterated grain to the concerned food inspector, executive officer and tehsildar. Her initiative has improved the quality of material supplied at this ration shop.

In Madhya Pradesh (MP), the number of underweight children under three years had actually increased from 50.8 per cent in 1999 (National Family Health Survey-2) to 57.9 per cent in 2005 (NFHS-3). In addition, more than 10 lakh children face severe wasting.

Despite this, sanctioned quantities of food do not reach the Ladwani Panchayat in Samnapur block, where 46 children between 3-6 years visit the local anganwadi regularly. During one of their monitoring visits, ward members Sona Bai and Kunta Bai noticed the children were being given very small quantities of a local sweet known as ‘sonpapri’. Both women reported this to the department of Women and Child Development after which immediate remedial actions were taken. The slightly built Sona Bai is furious. “I did not get enough food as a child, so I remained short. If children today eat properly, they won’t fall ill. I don’t understand where all the food stuff goes,” she says.

Her sentiments are echoed by other elected women from other parts of the country who explain that corruption is extensive and many deserving BPL families are being deliberately deprived. InBihar, 18 BPL families approached Mainamanti Devi, Up-Mukhiya (deputy chief), Sulemanpur Panchayat in Jehanabad district – a district that has made national news for starvation deaths – to inquire about their ration cards.

Mainamanti recalls, “Without ration cards they might as well be dead. I took up the matter with the panchayat secretary and the male mukhiya. They had colluded together and not released these cards. When I threatened to sit in protest along with the 18 families, the ration cards were immediately handed over to me.”

Sarpanch Premlata Raita of R. Udayagiri block in Odisha’s Gajapati district agrees with the need to be pro-active, “People are corrupt and want to make money at the cost of the poor. My role is to constantly monitor and continuously update the citizens of their rights and entitlements.”

But while women Panchayat members taking great interest in ensuring the proper implementation of schemes related to issues of hunger, they also know that tackling only the issue of nutrition is not enough. Take the example of Saraswati Devi of Manyava gram panchayat in Jehanabad. She mounted a spirited campaign against child marriage. Saraswati Devi reveals, “A 12-year-old girl was being married off in our locality. It would have meant early pregnancy and a lifelong battle with poor health. I am thankful that I was able to stop that marriage with the help of other women panchs.”

Her words reflect a deep realisation that issues like child marriage and discrimination against girls are closely related to malnutrition, stunted growth, and reduced productivity in later life and that good governance requires interventions at various levels. These grassroots women leaders are in for the long haul.Indiahas benefited, and will continue to benefit, greatly from their efforts.

 (The writer is Director, The Hunger Project.)

(© Women’s Feature Service)

PakIndia- when she was appointed the managing director of Vulcan Laval in 1987, she was the first Indian woman to reach that position in a multinational – was one of the exceptions. She was quick to speak about the Significant Other in her life – Firoz Poonawalla whom she met almost by accident.

 A mechanical engineer by training, Lila – as she explained to me during that interview – always knew she wanted to be different. So she consciously chose to be a mechanical engineer, preferring to soil her hands “on the shop floor to being trapped in a laboratory, doing research… I wanted some action in life.”

 But that was easier said than done. She first went looking for a job to the large companies in Pune, including Bajaj Auto and Telco (now Tata Motors), that turned her away saying that they did not employ women! Lila, with characteristic optimism, saw such rejections as a sign of destiny’s kindness, since it had something even more important in store for her. As she put it, “I am glad I did not join the Tatas and Bajajs because, if I had, I would never have got the opportunities I did in this smaller company.”

 It was this quiet confidence that led her to the eventful first day at Ruston & Hornsby to meet with a senior engineer at the company, who was entrusted the job of escorting its first female junior apprentice engineer from the bus stop to its offices. That young man, Firoze Poonawalla, was destined to be her husband and her closest companion. Said Lila, “I knew the moment I saw him that he was the one I would marry.”

 Firoz put Lila through the paces at work. Their marriage followed almost a year later, but it came with a fairly heavy price: The company had a policy that discouraged married couples from working together. Since Lila had got her break here after a long search, Firoz decided to step down and look for employment elsewhere. He felt his young wife needed to fulfill her career aspirations. Not many spouses would have done this.

 ”That has been the nature of our relationship. We looked out for each other and cared and nurtured each other so that both had space to grow,” Lila said. A few years ago, when Firoz decided to set up a floriculture unit to grow roses, the fond husband named the company Fila Roses (after their two names, Firoz-Lila). Incidentally, their home in the outskirts of Pune is called Fili Villa!

 Being married to a woman like Lila must have had its share of challenges for Firoz. She headed corporate entities and was on the boards of many reputed companies inIndia; she is a recipient of many national and international awards, including the Padma Shri, from the President of India in 1989 and the Polar Star in 2003, from the King of Sweden. She was constantly flying around the world to attend board meetings and sell dairy equipment in places likeSri Lanka,Bangladesh,NepalandRussia. She has been on the governing body of organisations like the Confederation of Indian Industries, besides being the chairperson for Agro Food Processing. She also served as a member of the scientific advisory board of the Central Cabinet (SAC-C) and was chairperson of the Herbal and Floriculture Taskforce of SAC-C.

 So how did Firoz cope? At a reading of ‘Leading Ladies…’ a few months ago, Firoz, himself an engineer of repute and one of the brains behind the Quality Circle Forum of India’s Pune chapter, made some heart-warming revelations. In the early days of their marriage, he said, when Lila’s career graph was zooming and her work involved travelling, he would literally have to check her diary to keep track of her.

 Once, when their wedding anniversary came around and Lila was again away from home, Firoz decided to check her diary and found that she would be in transit at an airport inEuropeen route to another meeting. He decided to surprise her: He still remembers with a chuckle her look of shock when she found him sitting patiently on an airport bench near the arrivals’ gate of the airport.

 Firoz said it was he who had to bear the brunt of parental disapproval over Lila’s frequent trips. “When I was lonely sometimes, I would go to my mother’s house for dinner and she would say: ‘You need to keep your wife under control and not allow her to travel around so much’.” When his mother’s observations got too much for him, he would visit his mother-in-law, only to hear the same observation, “She would first inquire about Lila and as soon as I told her she was travelling, she would tell me to be a man and make sure the wife was not always gallivanting around the world!” Firoz’s loving accounts had the audience in splits.

 While Lila remains one of the most sought after corporate consultants inIndiatoday, she continues to do what she has always done: Be there for Firoz. Said she, “For years I would wake up at 5 am, cook lunch for Firoz and me and wake him up for our breakfast, before setting off for work. I love cooking for him even today and he loves the fact that I still find the time to do that for us. Women these days are too quick-tempered, too ready to walk out marriages. If you commit to a relationship, give it your everything, life will become so easy.”

 Lila’s meteoric rise in the corporate world meant the couple had no children.  Not for a moment does she regret that, instead thanking the almighty for the large family of daughters she now has. Since 1996, the Lila Poonawalla Foundation has funded the education of almost a thousand girls, giving them scholarships to become doctors, surgeons, architects, designers – careers they probably would never have had if they had not come across this handsome woman with her flashing eyes and shock of curly hair.

 Setting up the Foundation was Lila’s way of expressing gratitude for the blessings that came to her. And it has proved to be a blessing in turn. “Wherever in the world we go, we have a daughter,” Firoz said to me a few months ago. Now the couple has plans to step up their engagement with the Foundation and increase the number of scholarships. They remain busy sifting through applications, meeting with those who approach the Foundation and their parents, and sometimes even play counsellor to young women coming to them with a range of problems, including the perennial one of parental disapproval of chosen partners!

 When the Foundation is not keeping them occupied, Lila and Firoz love to socialise. Every year they take off on an overseas tour, exploring the countryside, eating in quaint restaurants, indulging in their hobby of photography and acquiring collectibles. In fact, their collection of memorabilia grew so large that the couple actually moved out of one house and into Fili Villa, so that their cherished possessions had a proper home!

 Said Lila, summing up this rich life of partnership, “The time we spend together over our shared hobbies and in travelling keeps our relationship strong and always interesting.”

 (© Women’s Feature Service)

 Here’s what Amy’s own extreme Chinese parenting style was like: Not one to settle for second best, the Yale law professor made sure her elder daughter, Sophia, was never “indulging” in typical American pastimes like malling or watching TV or playing video games. The youngster followed the well-practiced drill of hours of studying followed by hours of music practice – she felt learning a musical instrument would be “civilising” for her girls. Even when the family went holidaying, like one time toParis, Chua located a piano in a hotel lobby so that Sophia would not miss her daily practice.

 Another jaw dropping incident she recounts in her bestseller is the time she threw her younger daughter, Lulu out in the freezing cold just because the little one refused to strike the right notes on the piano. This was when Lulu was just a toddler! Lulu eventually took violin lessons and here’s one stressful practice session Chua recounts in her book: ‘…things were tough with Lulu, because my very presence made her edgy and irritable. Once, in a middle of a practice session she burst out, “Stop it, Mommy. Just stop it.”

 “Lulu, I didn’t say anything,” I replied. “I didn’t say one word.”

 “Your brain is annoying me,” Lulu said. “I know what you’re thinking.”

 “I’m not thinking anything,” I said indignantly. Actually, I’d been thinking that Lulu’s right elbow was too high, that her dynamics were all wrong, and that she needed to shape her phrases better.

 “Just turn off your brain!” Lulu ordered. “I’m not going to play any more unless you turn off your brain.”’ (From Chapter 9, ‘The Violin’)

 The outcome of years of pressure and punishing schedules was that her obviously talented girls were straight A students throughout school. And today Sophia is a Harvard freshman, while Lulu is a concertmaster in an orchestra.

 Does that really endorse Chua’s no-fun parenting style? Not really. Her book may have been a runaway success but it sparked off a debate on the rights and wrongs of her mothering techniques. Many Americans did wonder whether there was something special about Chinese parenting methods, something that they were missing out on, and were paying for in terms of their own “under-performing” kids.

 A second generation Chinese America, Chua is a Harvard-educated lawyer married to Jed Rubenfeld, a law professor at Yale, who comes from a Jewish background. Worried that the all-American lifestyle – that believes in giving choices to children and making childhood fun – would overshadow her own Chinese identity, she adopted methods that would reverse this potential decline. Does the father ever figure in her parenting plans? No. Jed said he left the upbringing of their daughters completely to Amy and, predictably, he virtually doesn’t find any mention in the book.

 But when Chua wrote ‘ Battle Hymn…’ – on her website she candidly admits that the book was product of “…a moment of crisis, when my younger daughter seemed to turn against everything I stood for and it felt like I was losing her and everything was falling apart” – she never expected such extreme reactions. Even today, she tries to underplay the tone and advice given in the book saying that she wrote it in a lighter vein; that it was meant to be a satire and not to be taken literally.

 When I met Chua recently at the Jaipur Literature Festival, where she came along with her elder daughter Sophia, she said, “I never intended the book to be a parenting guide, it’s a memoir and its lighter vein has been missed completely. In fact, when I read the book to my daughters and my husband, they told me that it would not matter because ‘you are not famous so nobody is going to read it!’” Well, even to me, the humour is completely lost.

 Clearly, Sophia and Lulu would never have imagined that their mother’s parenting techniques would one day create such a stir – media reports have gone as far as calling them “fascist”. Of course, Chua firmly denies this. “Fascists never took self criticism. American journalists have double standards. They seem to condone other parents [tennis star Serena William’s parents came up in our conversation. I imagine they too would have put their daughter through rigorous schedules to ensure her Grand Slam status], but they immediately pounced on me,” she said. And she certainly has reported the worst about herself and has taken all the criticism she had invited in her stride.

 To be fair to Chua, when she read out some of the portions of her book at the Jaipur Literature Festival, the crowds cheered, often lustily, and it prompted her to comment that perhaps Indians have similar parenting techniques because they seemed to understand her. She added that she would not recommend “my method” to the Chinese as their parenting and schooling is too regimented already. She added, “If I could choose either happiness or success for my children, I’d be happy to choose happiness in a second. But it’s not so simple. I think having both is possible.”

 In her book Chua writes: ‘Here’s a question I often get: “But Amy, let me ask you this. Who are you doing all this pushing for – your daughters, or” – and here always, the cocked head, the knowing tone – “or yourself?” I find this a very Western question to ask (because in Chinese thinking, the child is the extension of the self). But that doesn’t mean it’s not an important one. My answer, I’m pretty sure, is that everything I do is unequivocally 100% for my daughters. My main evidence is that so much of what I do with Sophia and Lulu is miserable, exhausting, and not remotely fun for me. It’s not easy to make your kids work when they don’t want to, to put in grueling hours when your own youth is slipping away, to convince your kids they can do something when they (and maybe even you) are fearful that they can’t.’ (Chapter 22, ‘Blowout inBudapest’)

 It seems that Chua’s parenting techniques are more her own than anything else; they are a reaction to the freedom the American system provides, with its choices, activities and fun and frolic. She readily admits that her own brand of parenting assures success – if you can survive it – but it’s certainly no fun. Today, Sophia and Lulu may say that while growing up their mother was their “best friend”, but Chua admitted that if she were to bring up a third daughter now, she would definitely make some adjustments. Ultimately, though, as she put it, “it’s about believing in your child more than anyone else – more than they believe in themselves – and helping them realise their potential, whatever it may be”.

 (© Women’s Feature Service)

To better the social health and economic conditions of women and children, the Government has adopted a number of programmes and initiatives. Many of these centrally-sponsored schemes, like the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the Reproductive and Child Health Programme, the National Rural Health Mission and the Integrated Child Development Services have increased public resources to key sectors. However, the main challenge to be overcome in these sectors is to deliver these commitments and initiatives into results that can be measured.

ICDS Restructured

It is against this background that the paradigm shift of the Ministry of Women & Child Development in its approach to social sector issues assumes significance. The variance in approach signifies a replacement of the earlier solely only welfare oriented methodology with the aim of the holistic empowerment of women and child.

            The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme, launched in 1975 is the major component of these programmes. It has been expanded in three phases in the years 2005-06, 2007-08 and 2008-09.

Under the scheme, 6771 ICDS Projects and 12.95 lakh AWCs (Anganwadi Centers) are working as at present. Their services are being availed by more than nine and a half crore beneficiaries.  The number of AWCs has increased by more than half a crore during 2010 – 2011.

Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE)

Another important development in this respect has been the Union Government’s decision to formulate a national policy and curriculum framework on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE). This policy is to be put into operation through the strengthened and restructured ICDS. This will result in the AWCs being re positioned as the Early Childhood Development Centres. These centres, in turn, will function as an enabling environment for promotion of early childhood development, with a sharp focus on delivering quality ECCE.

Information Kit for Rural Mothers.

It is against these developments that Information, Communication and Education (ICE) packages fro the Indian Rural Women have to be formulated. The following are some of the major points that will be covered by such packages.

• No marriage before the girl is eighteen years old.
• Breast feeding the child is equally important for the health and immunity – not only of the child, but also of the mother.
• The mile stones of the child development must be watched for and noted. It is the responsibility of not only the health worker, or the mother! Rather it is the responsibility of the whole family!! (Important milestones include the fixing of the head, sight and hearing abilities, appropriate increase in weight etc).
• The immunization schedule for the child should be strictly followed. The immunization card provided by the rural health worker can be of great aid in providing an added vigour to following the schedule.
• The father of the child has an equally important role in the growth of the child. It is he who provides the fledgling child with a sense of security and confidence to take on life as part of a society. The rate of the growth of intelligence of a child increases when the child is brought up by both the father and the mother rather than when by a single parent.

(PIB Feature)

“The objective of the training is to equip women of different backgrounds with English proficiency, computer literacy and vocational skills to make them independent and employable,” Dayanand Sagar Institute vice-president R. Janardhan told IANS.

Buoyed by the success of its pilot project in which 30 women in the 25-60 age group were trained and absorbed by 10 firms across verticals, the institute is commencing a three-month crash course from Jan 16 to train about 150 women in five batches of 30 each.

“We were able to rope in 30 women with and without formal education to take the course titled ‘Women Accomplished’ on trial basis,” Janardhan said.

“Though they were from different backgrounds, including college dropouts, they acquired the skills to be employed for diverse jobs with Rs.10,000-12,000 salary per month,” he added.

As a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, the institute is subsidising the course to levy a fee of Rs.4,500 for the training course and offering its campus facilities for five days a week (Monday-Friday).

“As the majority of women will be homemakers or doing part-time or odd jobs, we have kept the syllabi and the classes flexible to enable them to spare three hours a day to acquire the skills, be it English, computer basics and vocations such as preventive health, first aid, skin care, maternity, diet, yoga and oral hygiene,” the vice-president noted.

The institute has structured the training modules with valuable inputs from diverse sectors such as IT & IT-enabled services (ITeS), call centres, factories, distribution networks, retail chains, small and medium enterprises and healthcare.

“On completion of the course at basic and advance levels, the institute will award the trainees with certificates. We will also arrange campus interviews for their selection by inviting companies scouting for skilled women,” Janardhan pointed out.

In addition to its faculty, the institute will invite experts from diverse fields, including those working at various levels in companies, to impart to the trainees the skills required for employing them suitably after the completion of the crash course.

“The game plan is to develop a training model that can be replicated by other institutes, organisations and corporates to empower women from across the social strata with employable skills and create a human capital in the long run,” Janardhan told IANS.

Computer literacy will enable the trainee women to open an e-mail account, write a letter using MS Word, search for information on the net and use social media to hone communication skills.

“With hundreds of educated men and women leaving the country every year for higher education and lucrative jobs overseas, there is a sudden ‘shortage’ of skilled workforce in various sectors of the economy,” the vice-president said.

“If we don’t arrest the trend and reverse the brain drain, we will lose out to competing countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines,” he added.

“The stories speak of a woman’s need to love, rather than the objects of love. Women love passionately, deeply, often angrily. Real love is not about sexual conquest, it is not a triumphant place, but a space of surrender,” Gokhale, co-director of the upcoming Jaipur Literature Festival, told IANS in an interview.

“These stories have been written over a period of time. The first of them, ‘Omens Sacred and Profane’, was penned over 20 years ago. Poet and novelist Jeet Thayil asked me to submit something for an anthology he was editing. I wrote it very quickly in a hotel room in Kathmandu, where I was holidaying with my husband, some time between lunch and dinner!”

“I don’t give myself too much time to think about it – that’s how I write a short story. Novels need structuring, planning, graphing. But short fiction requires a relentless flow and a sense of inevitability about the ending. I find it easier to write sad stories than funny ones, although a slightly macabre humour does creep into all that I write. The form lends itself to introspection, to piecing together the puzzles, mysteries and enigmas of half-encountered lives,” Gokhale said.

“The Habit of Love” (Penguin India) will be released Friday.

“These narratives have been imagined in airports, scribbled on the backs of envelopes, corrected in traffic jams! I think I’ll be doing more of them, carrying my tangled balls of wooly ideas and half-knitted stories around with me everywhere I go,” Gokhale told IANS.

“There is something about these very different voices and settings that hold together. They speak of the interior lives of women. They carry a note of anxiety, of regret, of time flying by and the fact that real love comes from vulnerablility,” she said.

“Omens 1″ is about Vatsala Vidyarthi, a lonely “literary lady” who works in an advertising agency. Vidyarthi suspects she has been robbed by her one-night stand during an official junket to Rishikesh and returns determined to bury the hurtful incident; yet it leads her to reassess the nature of faith and trust.

In the moving and enigmatic “Hamsdhwani”, a golden-winged swan, becomes the narrator of the tale of star-crossed lovers Nala and Damayanti.

“I wanted to work on a piece about Nala and Dayamanti for many years. The myth touched something in me ever since the time I had worked on the Mahabharata for young readers and encountered it hidden in the folds of the epic. My sister has a house in Nainital and there is a Nala-Damayanti lake nearby. There is also a mountain named after the Snake god, Karkotaka, who plays a transformative role in the myth.

“I identified with the emotive landscape as well as the physical geography, but I did not know what the handle was, or where and how to begin. My editor at Penguin suggested I turn it around, and look at love from the point of view of the swan in flight,” the writer said.

“The Habit of Love”, from which the collection gets its title, “was written for an Italian publication”. The story looks at the life of a widowed mother of two daughters, whose grief stands like a lonely Himalayan peak in the ring of icy heights surrounding Kathmandu.

Gokhale, who has been at the forefront of several global projects to carry Indian writing abroad, is now working on a new novel, “Things to Leave Behind”.

She is the author of several acclaimed novels like “Paro – Dreams of Passion”, “Priya: In Incredible Indyaa”, “Gods, Graves and Grandmother”, “A Himalayan Love Story” and “Shakuntala: The Play of Memory”. Her works of non-fiction include “Mountain Echoes” and “The Book of Shiva”.

Gross has worked in the field for over 25 years, but she’s still an anomaly. Women have been gaining ground as engineers since the 1980s, according to a National Science Foundation report, but in 2006 women were still only 19 per cent of those holding a bachelor’s degree in engineering.

In 2011, an all-female team – that included Gross – was behind the creation, marketing and distribution of the Volt, the first electric car with extended range capability. Talking passionately about the product she helped create, Teri Quigley, plant manager at Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly, the production place for the Chevrolet Volt, says, “The Volt is a great demonstration of the opportunities that exist for women. It requires hard work just like any job, but the door is wide open for success.”

In the US, women make up less than 11 per cent of working engineers and earn 86 per cent of the salaries of their male counterparts. Engineering salaries are among the highest earnings for college graduates, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In electrical engineering, the median salary for the lowest 10 per cent of the field is $52,990, while the median salary for the highest paid 10 per cent of engineers is $125,810.

“I think the only barrier, given you are strong and capable, is getting women past the word engineering,” believes Gross. “It sounds stale and not very exciting but I can’t imagine anything more exciting than my career.”

Engineering careers are time consuming and all four women say that the one downside to their work is the time it takes away from family life. “It’s clearly the No. 1 challenge,” says Gross. But she adds that there are also benefits for children, “It makes stronger kids and they appreciate what mom can do.”

The first Volts were delivered in Washington D.C., the New York City metropolitan region, California, and Austin, Texas. In May 2011, the green car had been launched in Connecticut, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, and Virginia. And as per expansion plans across the country, bookings for Chevrolet Volt 2012 started in June 2011, with deliveries in November 2011.

For Gross, that has meant making sure areas have websites and numbers for consumers to call about the cars, electrical contractors are prepared and incentives are in place.

The list price for the 2011 model is $41,000 with a tax credit of $7,500, revealed Cristi Landy, production marketing manager of the vehicle, who was on the original car team formed in 2006.

Today, a few electric cars are in production or on the market around the world. In the United States, the Volt and Nissan Leaf are the first “family-size” electric vehicles, compared to most electric cars, which are usually small and have two doors. And the team is excited about the work they have done.

In the mid-1990s, General Motors withdrew an all-electric car, the EV1. But according to Gross, the Volt has some key differences. The EV1 was a two-seater, light-weight, all-electric car with limited driving range and produced with specialty materials. Gross says there is a standard now for charging electric cars, which was not in place when the EV1 came out.

The goal for the Volt team was to make an electric car with wide-range capability. Although the Volt can use gas, Gross says it is an electric car first. According to her, 78 per cent of drivers in the US travel less than 40 miles a day. The Volt can travel for 25 to 50 miles on electricity alone depending on conditions. For the next 340 more miles, the car uses electric and gasoline power, making the four-seater appropriate for a small family, reveals Pam Fletcher, chief engineer for Volt and Plug-In Hybrid Propulsion Systems.

The car takes up to 10 hours to charge and requires a three-pronged, 120-volt outlet, which can be found in most homes. There is a button to lower the charge to avoid fuse blowouts. A 240-volt charger, which comes with installation costs, can reduce charging time to four hours.

According to Gross, General Motors found that 50 per cent of cars are parked at home or at work. Based on this, she has worked to make chargers accessible at home first and then work locations. The Volt team is also trying to make the car more accessible to apartment residents, who may not have a place to charge the vehicle.

Ever thought that there will be a time when an all-female team would be behind the launch of a premier model by an automobile giant? More power to female engineers!

By arrangement with Women’s eNews.

(Katherine Rausch is a freelance writer with a degree in journalism. For original story, log on to:

http://www.womensenews.org/story/women-in-science/110419/female-engineers-put-buzz-gms-volt)

Source : Womens Feature Service

The more such a man believes a woman fancies him, the more likely he is to keep trying and, therefore, ‘get lucky’ the next time, says the study.

It concluded that if a man finds a woman irresistible, then chances are she’s not interested, reported the Daily Mail, citing the journal Psychological Science.

The research involved 96 male and 103 female undergraduates, who were put through a ‘speed-meeting’ exercise, talking for three minutes to each of five potential opposite sex mates.

Before the conversations, the participants rated themselves on their own attractiveness and were also assessed for the level of their desire for a short-term sexual encounter.

After each ‘meeting’, they rated the partner on a number of measures, including physical attractiveness and sexual interest in the participant.

The results showed that men looking for a ‘quick hook-up’ were more likely to overestimate the women’s desire for them.

The ‘speed dating’ model used by the researchers allowed them to study dozens of interactions between men and women – and build a clear picture of what ‘strategies’ worked for mating males.

Carin Perilloux, psychologist at Williams College in Massachusetts, said: ‘There are two ways you can make an error as a man.’

‘Either you think: ‘Oh, wow, that woman’s really interested in me’ and it turns out she’s not. There’s some cost to that, such as embarrassment or a blow to your reputation.’

The researchers theorise that the kind of men who ‘went for it’, even at the risk of being rebuffed, were eventually more successful more often.

‘This suggests that drinking-prevention efforts should begin before college,’ said Maria Testa, from the University of Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions, who led the study.

Of all young women whose biggest binge had included four to six drinks, one quarter said they’d been sexually victimised in the autumn semester. That included anything from unwanted sexual contact to rape.

The college years are notoriously linked with drinking. But little has been known about how young women change their high school drinking habits once they start college, the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs reports.

Accordingly, researchers followed 437 young women from high school graduation through freshman year of college, according to a Buffalo statement.

They found that of women who had never drunk heavily in high school (if at all), nearly half admitted to binge drinking at least once by the end of their first college semester.

And the more alcohol those binges involved, the greater the likelihood of sexual assault.

Of women who’d ever consumed 10 or more drinks in a sitting since starting college, 59 percent were sexually victimised by the end of their first semester.

The study also underscores the fact that even kids who don’t drink in high school are at risk of heavy drinking once they head off to college, Testa concluded.

 Reconstitution of statutory bodies under the Act and regular meetings of the Central Supervisory Board, State Supervisory Board and Advisory Committees to monitor effective implementation of the law.

• Rule 11(2) of the PC & PNDT Rules, 1996 has been amended to provide for confiscation of unregistered machines and further punishment of organizations which fail to register themselves under the Act.
• Dedicated PNDT cells have been set up at State/district level for enhancing in-house capacities for building credible cases for conviction against violations of the Act.
• Surprise field inspections of ultrasound clinics by the National Inspection and Monitoring Committee (NIMC) in states/UTs against violations under the Act.
• NIMC has been further empowered to oversee follow-up action by Appropriate Authorities against organizations found guilty of violations under the Act during  inspections.
• Sensitization and training programme have been conducted for law enforcers,  medical practitioners, judiciary etc. for effective implementation of the Act.
• Comprehensive Information, Education & Communication (IEC) activities including mass media awareness campaign through print and electronic media and community mobilization through Non-Governmental Organizations have also been undertaken.

This information was laid by Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad in Rajya Sabha

‘To get fit with all physical conditions, including with nutritious strength, maternity leave has been increased from three months to six months for all working pregnant mothers,’ Sarkar told reporters after a cabinet meet.

Farzana Yasmin said she wants everyone to take lessons from the incident.

‘Dowry has become a cancer of society. I’ve read in newspapers about it and have always wondered why this happens,’ Farzana told BBC Bangla Service.

‘When it happened right before my eyes, something happened inside me. I felt like speaking up against it and doing something about it,’ she said.

Farzana, who recently completed her masters from Eden College, Dhaka, said: ‘Everything was complete. They were about to take me to the wedding car.’

Then she realised something was wrong while seated on the stage. She heard her would-be in-laws demanding ‘gifts’. ‘They said, ‘Where are the gifts?’ They didn’t call it dowry.’

‘My elder sister reacted, ‘We are going to give you our girl, nothing else was promised’,’ said Farzana.

An aunt of her groom came to Farzana and said, ‘We are going to keep this girl hanging for five years, if we don’t receive a TV and refrigerator, we won’t take her home’.

‘I was dumbfounded! I asked my husband, who sat beside me, ‘What is this?’, and he replied, ‘My aunt’s words are my words’, she said.

Farzana took a stand and said it was not possible for her to remain there. ‘I’d rather leave than stay with people who ask for dowry.’

Though her family and friends found it difficult to support her decision in the beginning, they later appreciated the move.

‘I have no regrets. May be I haven’t changed the lives of 10 people, but I want people to take the lesson that girls can do something,’ she said.

It has been implementing many programmes which aim at providing access to education and vocational training to women. The most important being, the ‘Women’s Vocational Training Programme‘ launched under the Directorate General of Employment & Training (DGE&T) in the Ministry of Labour. The programme attempts to promote the women employment in industry (mainly organised sector) as semi-skilled, skilled and highly skilled workers by increasing their participation in skill training facilities. Under this programme, a separate ‘Women’s Training Wing’ has been set up at DGE&T Headquarters, which is responsible for designing and pursuing long term policies related to providing vocational training to women in the country. Also, as part of the programme, in the Central Sector, one National and ten Regional Vocational Training Institutes have been set up in different parts of the country. While, in the State Sector, a network of exclusive ‘Women Industrial Training Institutes (WITIs)‘ have been set up under the administrative control of the State Governments. These institutes provide basic skill training to women.

Also, the Government has been making efforts for creating a congenial work environment for women workers. For this purpose, a separate ‘Cell for Women Labour’ has been set up in the Ministry to focus attention on the condition of working women and bring about an improvement therein. The Cell has the following functions:-

• Formulation and coordination of policies and programmes for the female labour force within the framework of national manpower and economic policies.

• Maintaining liaison with other Government agencies to secure effective implementation of the programmes in respect of women workers.

• Monitoring the implementation of the Equal Remuneration Act,1976.

• Setting up of an Advisory Committee under the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976.

• Giving grants-in-aid to Non-Governmental Organisations/ Voluntary Organisations to formulate and execute action oriented projects for women workers.

Moreover, a number of protective provisions have been incorporated in the various laws enacted for equality and empowerment of women, the proper enforcement of which will create an enabling environment for women workers.

	Maternity Benefit Act, 1961
	Equal Remuneration Act, 1976

Source : Government of India

It is the men who are really fond of hugging, while one out of three women who can’t stand it force themselves into doing it, to avoid annoying their partner, reveals a new study.

Fifty five percent of women usually allow their menfolk briefest of hugs before rolling over to go to sleep. Another half admit they don’t like cuddling in bed because when they finally retire, they just want to go to sleep.

One in five say they don’t like prolonged physical contact with their partner in bed, claiming that it makes them hot and uncomfortable, the Daily Mail reports.

A third of women give night-time cuddles just twice a week or less. And more than one in 20 admit they ‘hardly ever’ cuddle their partner.

Close to one in 10 women admit they’d rather be checking Facebook in bed than cuddling their partner.

Some 36 percent of British males say getting too few night-time cuddles has led to bedroom rows, compared to just 26 percent of women who say the same.

As for those affection-starved men – they are more likely to cuddle their partner all night long – 22 percent of men admit to this compared to just 18 percent of women, while conversely, women are also twice as likely to ‘hardly ever’ cuddle their partner as men.

Both sexes admit they tend to cuddle their partner less as they get older though. One in five men and women say they cuddle their partner once a night every night – seven times a week on average. And 41 percent of the nation agrees that cuddles are most likely during the winter months.

A spokesperson for Silentnight, the company behind the findings, said: ‘There is a general consensus that women prefer cuddling to men. But, according to our research, this clearly isn’t the case.

Women, Business and the Law 2012: Removing Barriers to Economic Inclusion finds that while36 economies reduced legal differences between men and women, 103 out of 141 economies studied still impose legal differences on the basis of gender in at least one of the report’s key indicators. The report also identifies 41 law and regulatory reforms enacted between June 2009 and March 2011 that could enhance women’s economic opportunities.

Globally, women represent 49.6 percent of the population but only 40.8 percent of the workforce in the formal sector. Legal differences between men and women may explain this gap. The report shows that economies with greater legal differentiation between men and women have, on average, lower female participation in the formal labor force.

“Competitiveness and productivity have much to do with the efficient allocation of resources, including human resources,” said Augusto Lopez-Claros, Director, Global Indicators and Analysis, World Bank Group. “The economy suffers when half of the world’s population is prevented from fully participating. It is certainly no surprise that the world’s most competitive economies are those where the opportunity gap between women and men is the narrowest.”

The report measures such things as a woman’s ability to sign a contract, travel abroad, manage property, and interact with public authorities and the private sector. In all economies, married women face more legal differentiations than unmarried women. In 23 economies, married women cannot legally choose where to live, and in 29 they cannot be legally recognized as head of household.

Every region includes economies with unequal rules for men and women, although the extent of the inequality varies widely. On average, high-income economies have fewer differences than middle- and low-income economies. The Middle East and North Africa have the most legal differences between men and women, followed by South Asia and Africa. In Africa, a notable exception is Kenya, which leads globally with the most gender-parity reforms during the past two years. Regionally, the most improvements in gender parity occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and Central Asia.

The report can be accessed at wbl.worldbank.org.

About the Women, Business and the Law Project:

The project measures how regulations and institutions differentiate between women and men in ways that may affect women’s incentives or capacity to work or to set up and run a business.Women, Business and the Law objectively measures such legal differentiations on the basis of gender in 141 economies around the world, covering six areas: accessing institutions, using property, getting a job, providing incentives to work, building credit, and going to court. While the project provides a clear picture of gender gaps based on legal differences in each economy, it is a simple snapshot measuring only legal differentiation. It does not capture the full extent of the gender gap, nor does it indicate the relative importance of each aspect covered. For a collection of national legal provisions impacting women’s economic status in 183 economies, please visit the Gender Law Library.

About the World Bank Group

The World Bank Group is one of the world’s largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries. It comprises five closely associated institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA), which together form the World Bank; the International Finance Corporation (IFC); the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA); and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Each institution plays a distinct role in the mission to fight poverty and improve living standards for people in the developing world. For more information, please visit www.worldbank.org, www.miga.org, and www.ifc.org.

* This article was originally published by United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) and is available at http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BE6B5/(http
News)/7F6321E556FA0364C12579220031A129?OpenDocument

‘Shabnam Rakhimova gave birth two hours before landing as the plane was crossing Kazakhstan airspace,’ she added. A nurse, who was on the aircraft, and four flight attendants delivered the newborn.

‘The boy weighed in at two kilograms and measured 48 centimeters. Despite the extreme conditions, the delivery went smoothly. The passengers greeted the boy with wild applause,’ the spokeswoman said.

She added that Tajik Air, as well as other airline companies, bans pregnant women from flying after the third trimester begins at six months. ‘Notwithstanding the strict rules, pregnant women conceal their real terms by providing false medical documents.’

This was the third time a baby was born on board a Tajik Air flight since 2007.

–IANS/RIA Novosti

snb/vt

They crave dependability, domesticity, a little romance, humour, average height, and aren’t after a 6ft Adonis, the Daily Express reported. A survey of 3,000 women of all ages for drinks company Orangina found they favoured a man aged 30 to 45, 5ft 10in tall, a good cook and with a job.

Opening the meeting Shri Azad said that today’s meeting has important bearings for the future of the nation as the declining child sex ratio in most of the States is a matter of grave national concern. Shri Azad said there is urgent need to arrest the gender imbalance. “Proper implementation of the PC & PNDT Act and deliberation on the steps are required to be taken to address this grave challenge by the States”, he said. “The 2011 Provisional Census figures have served as a wake-up call for all of us. The misuse of medical technology for pre birth sex selection is evidently increasing” he noted as the number of girls in the age group of 0-6 years now stands at a mere 914 for every 1000 boys. The Minister said all necessary steps; political, social, economic and scientific, need to be taken to end negative discrimination against the girl child. The role that Information, Education and Communication (IEC) can play in building a positive environment for valuing the girl child can hardly be over-emphasized. “Though the PC & PNDT Act is a central legislation, it’s implementation lies entirely with the States who are expected to enforce it through District Appropriate Authorities at the State, District and Sub-district levels”. Shri Azad asked all States to appoint the Appropriate Authorities and also monitor their functioning as also conduct systematic inspections and overall monitoring of doctors and clinics registered under the Act. Shri Azad urged the States to ensure proper utilization of the funding under NRHM for setting up dedicated PNDT cells at the State and district levels to strengthen capacity to enforce the PC & PNDT Act.

. The Union Minister also urged the States to implement the Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram in true letter and spirit so that the poor, needy and vulnerable sections of our society are brought into the institutional fold and their out of pocket expenses are eliminated.

The ‘Safe in the City’ website will be launched Oct 30 and it will work as a reporting tool for any woman who is harassed anywhere in the country, the NGO said in a statement.

The site will also have a special map of 100 most unsafe places in the capital.

Twenty employees are taking part in the expedition. It will return to Delhi Oct 3.

The study highlighting the pressures of parenting found that two-thirds of mothers who stay at home rely on nurseries and nannies. One in 10 pay up to 20 percent of their income for a break from their offspring, the Daily Express reported.

Raising children was such hard work that many women — at least 20 percent — admit they only enjoy half the time they spend with them.

A whopping 70 percent said they used their ‘child-free time’ to do housework and shopping while 30 percent simply catch up on sleep, found the study by TV channel Cartoonito.

‘Mums certainly shouldn’t feel bad about enlisting some support so they can take some time out for themselves. The pre-school years can be incredibly stressful, especially for stay-at-home mums without a job. Toddlers are mini whirlwinds with boundless energy and a million questions on a good day or terrific tantrums on bad days,’ says family psychologist Pat Spungin.

The Minister of State (I/C) for Women & Child Development Smt. Krishna Tirath revealed in Lok Sabha today that as per the information received from the Government of Madhya Pradesh, the probe into child sex trade among Banchra tribe has been completed. As part of the measures taken to curb the instances of child sex trade amongst the Banchra tribe, a survey was conducted by the State Government in the abodes of the tribe where the arrival of minor girls was closely observed. As a result of the survey 25 minor girls were rescued and sent to shelter homes where they are being provided with education and other facilities.

The Minister informed the house that the Government of India is taking a number of measures to prevent and combat trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation in the country. The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 supplemented by the Indian Penal Code prohibits trafficking in human beings, including children and lays down penalties for trafficking. A Comprehensive Advisory on Preventing and Combating Human Trafficking in India has been issued on 09.09.2009 by the Government of India to all States/ Union Territories. Further, the Ministry has been implementing the “Ujjawala” Scheme, under which financial assistance is being provided, inter alia, for prevention of trafficking through formation of community vigilance groups/adolescence groups, holding sensitization and awareness generation workshops and preparing awareness generation material.

The Minister of State (I/C) for Women & Child Development Smt. Krishna Tirath stated in Lok Sabha today that dowry deaths are covered under Section 304B of IPC. As per Seventh Schedule, ‘Police’ and ‘Public Order’ are State subjects under the Constitution. As such, the primary responsibility of prevention, detection, registration, investigation and prosecution of crimes, including crimes against women, lies with the State Governments/ Union Territory Administrations. However, the Central Government attaches importance to the matter of prevention and control of crime against women and has been advising the State Governments from time to time depending upon the need regarding the steps that need to be taken to afford a greater measure of protection to the women and, in particular, to prevent incidence of crimes against them. These advisories, inter-alia, emphasize gender sensitization of the police personnel, minimizing delays in investigations of crime against women and improving the quality of investigation and setting up ‘Crime against Women Cells’ in districts where these do not exist. States/ UT Administrations have also been advised that Dowry related cases must be adjudicated expeditiously to avoid further harassment of the women and also to develop a community monitoring system to check cases of violence, abuse and exploitation.

1. We, the Ministers of Education and representatives of the E-9 and SAARC countries having assembled in New Delhi, India from 8 September 2011 to 10 September 2011 for a discourse on ‘Women’s Literacy for Inclusive and Sustainable Development’ reiterate collaborative global action for women’s literacy.

2. We acknowledge the good practices of the different countries as reflected in the country presentations to meet the EFA and MDGs and the commitments made in the Eighth E-9 Ministerial review meeting on Education for All ‘Literacy for Development’ at Abuja, Nigeria.

3. We appreciate the opinion and suggestions of adult education experts, policy makers, academics, and practitioners expressed in technical sessions and their concern for improving women’s literacy and their participation in development.

4. We reiterate collectively the centrality of women’s literacy and lifelong education for inclusive and sustainable development. We also realize that promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women are effective tools to combat poverty and to stimulate development to promote the values of humanity and of peace.

5. We recognize that policies and legislative measures for adult education need to be inclusive and integrated within lifelong learning perspective linking all components of learning and education for which participation of all stakeholders are indispensable to guarantee the needs and aspirations of the most disadvantaged sections of the society.

6. We acknowledge the importance of mainstreaming adult education to improve the literacy rate and quality of life and the need for higher resource allocation for the same.

7. We commit to improve the quality of the programme by pooling together all the good practices of the member countries in the areas of curriculum, teaching-learning materials, training, monitoring, and learner assessment.

8. We affirm our commitment to decentralisation and inclusion of women in all the initiatives related to literacy programmes.

9. We are convinced that learning today is within a lifelong and life wide framework and literacy is the very foundation for lifelong learning. We recognize the need for building an effective lifelong learning system and a learning society as a major strategic change for addressing global educational challenges.

10. We attest to the fundamental role of mutual cooperation as an important modality to exchange expertise, experiences and best practices among E9 and SAARC countries to achieve EFA goals through South-South cooperation and North-South-South Triangular Cooperation.

11. We commit ourselves to forge alliances for regional and sub-regional cooperation to meet the goals set by our countries, particularly in the areas of capacity building, assessment protocol, training and research. As an initial effort, as part of sub-regional cooperation we recommend that a Centre for Policy Research and Training in Adult Education can be established in New Delhi by 2013 for the benefit of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

      As far as Human Trafficking is concerned, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India has sanctioned a sum of Rs. 8.72 crores for establishment of 115 Anti Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs) under its comprehensive scheme. Each AHTU has the composition of seven staff members which includes one Inspector, two Sub-Inspectors, Two Head Constables and Two Constables. States/UTs have been requested to include women police officers in AHTUs.

                As per inputs provided by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the total number of cases registered under the total crime of Human Trafficking during the period 2007, 2008 and 2009 were 3991, 3029 and 2848 respectively. State/UT wise details is at Annexure.

            These cases are registered,  investigated and prosecuted as per provisions of  law.

This was stated by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Shri Jitendra Singh,  in written reply to a question in the Rajya  Sabha today.

Click here to see Annexure

Sources close to Banerjee said the formal invitation from the hallowed institution was received at the chief minister?s secretariat Saturday. Banerjee has been requested to speak on either the ?Culture and Politics of Bengal? or ?Demographic Changes in Bengal?.

The university authorities have not fixed a date, but indicated their preference for late-October or the first week of November for the trip. Banerjee is considering the invitation, the sources said.

Last year, Banerjee was invited by Cambridge University for a lecture, but she cancelled the visit citing spiralling political violence in the state.

In May, she led an alliance of her party Trinamool Congress and the Congress to power ending the 34-year old rule of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) headed Left Front.

Official estimates on the number of surrogate pregnancies in India are not available. SAMA, a women’s health organisation, says the assisted reproductive technology (ART) industry in India, which includes surrogacy, is estimated at Rs.25,000 crore. Surrogacy in the U.S. costs upwards of $100,000 in addition to the cost of the in vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedure, whereas in India it costs $23,000 to $25,000 as a package.

“Technically there is no law [to regulate surrogacy in India], and secondly it is just one-fourth the cost. That is what makes India an attraction for surrogate pregnancies,” says Preeti Nayak, a health worker with SAMA. “Not only do we need a proper regulatory framework for surrogacy, we also need to look closely at the health aspect as well.”

The government is in the process of making a law to regulate surrogacy. Doctors and health activists, however, have little faith in The Assisted Reproductive Technologies (Regulation) Bill, which is expected to be tabled in Parliament this year. They believe that unless some key issues regarding surrogacy are addressed, this could spiral into a massive racket.

“Currently they are playing with fire,” says a gynaecologist in Mumbai. “I used to have maybe one case a month. Now it is at least one case a week. This has to be regulated and stricter norms must be in place.”

Nonetheless, to many women in Anand, surrogacy has come as a boon. Especially for women like Sharadaben who lived a life of misery and abject poverty, it has been life-changing.

FOR MORE READING. . .

There is no proposal to amend the existing law on Sati nor is there any proposal to bring about a separate law to prevent the crimes against women. Except for the provisions relating to Rape and Molestation, the existing provisions in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) with regard to Kidnapping & Abduction (Sec. 363-373), Dowry Death (Sec.304-B) and Cruelty to married women (Sec.498A), which deal with the major offences committed against women, are adequate.

Smt. Krishna Tirath said that besides IPC, there are specific laws in existence for tackling offences such as trafficking, dowry, indecent representation, sati and domestic violence against women. They are Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956; Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961; Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986; Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987 and Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005. In addition, the Government has introduced a Bill in 2010 in Parliament to protect the women against sexual harassment at work place. ‘The Protection of Women against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, 2010’ is a comprehensive Bill which will replace the existing guidelines on sexual harassment issued by the Supreme Court in Vishaka and others V. State of Rajasthan and others.

The Minister further stated that to ensure stricter implementation of the PCPNDT Act, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has taken following further steps:

• Rule 11(2) of the PC & PNDT Rules, 1996 has been amended to provide for confiscation of unregistered machines and further punishment of organizations which fail to register themselves under the Act.

• The National Inspection and Monitoring Committee has been reconstituted and apart from inspections, further empowered to oversee follow-up action by Appropriate Authorities against the organizations found guilty of violations under the Act during inspections.

• States have been asked during appraisal of the annual Programme implementation Plan (PIP) to take advantage of funding available under NRHM for strengthening infrastructure and augmentation of human resources required for effective implementation of the PC & PNDT Act.

• Operational guidelines for PNDT-NGO Grant in Aid Scheme have been revised to ensure targeted use of resources for effective implementation of the Act.

Merkel, who has topped the list of the world’s 100 most powerful women in all but one of the years since she became chancellor in November 2005, beat out US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and, in 3rd place, Dilma Rousseff, who became Brazil’s first woman president on January 1 2011.

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel is head of the one real global economy in Europe and is the ‘undisputed’ leader of the EU,” Forbes said.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi figures as the seventh most powerful woman of the world in theForbes list which is topped by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

64-year-old Sonia Gandhi, who is recouping from an unspecified surgery in a US hospital, is ranked seventh jus ahead of US First Lady Michell Obama in a list of 100 most powerful women of the world released by the Forbesmagazine.

Fore the list of powerful woman 2011 click here . . .

As was shown in a previous article (”The Latest Employment Trends from the NSSO”), applying the participation rates of the NSSO survey of 2009-10 to interpolated population figures from Censuses 2001 and 2011 shows that total female employment actually declined at an annual rate of 1.72 per cent between 2004-05 and 2009-10, while male employment (mostly in casual work) showed a slight increase, albeit much lower than in the previous period, at the rate of 1.72 per cent.

Clearly, this is a significant and potentially very disturbing result, especially given that women’s work participation rates are already quite low in India compared to most other parts of the developing world. It should be borne in mind, of course, that work participation rates as described by official surveys are not really good indicators of the productive contributions of women.

This is particularly so in large parts of India, where much of the economic activity of women, whether in the home or outside, is simply not recognised as such by other household members and even by the women themselves. A significant part of women’s work is not just unpaid, therefore: it is also socially unrecognised. This is true of not just social reproduction, but other economic activity where women’s work is rendered invisible by social perceptions.

That is why many social scientists take women’s work participation rate as one of the proxy indicators of women’s overall status in society and of gender empowerment. It is not just because paid work provides income individually to women rather than to male members of the household. It is also because the productive contribution of women is typically less recognised in societies where women are undervalued in general.

FOR MORE READING. . 

The Minister of Women & Child Development Smt. Krishna Tirath today stated in Lok Sabha that in order to curb female foeticide and improve the sex ratio, Government has adopted a multi-pronged strategy which includes legislative measures, advocacy, awareness generation and programmes for socio-economic empowerment of women.

The Minister further stated that the legislative measures comprise of implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technique (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994(PCPNDT), under which sex selective abortions are punishable.

For advocacy and awareness generation and to create national awareness on issues relating to girl child, in 2009, Ministry of Women and Child Development has declared January 24 as the National Girl Child Day. Further, to encourage change of mind sets, Government of India has introduced on pilot basis, ‘Dhanalakshmi’, a scheme for incentivising birth of the Girl Child. A number of States are also implementing their own schemes to incentivise the birth of a girl child

The Minister informed that besides, the Government of India has undertaken a number of initiatives for socio-economic empowerment of women, such as Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP), The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) and loans through the RashtriyaMahilaKosh.

The Government has approved the proposal for enhancing reservation of women in Panchayats from the present one-third to 50%. Accordingly, a bill for amendment of the Constitution of India had been introduced in the Parliament. As per the recommendation of the Parliamentary Standing Committee, the Government has approved that reservation for Schedule Castes and Schedule Tribes shall be on the basis of the percentage of rural population and not total population. An amendment to the pending Bill is proposed to be introduced.

There is at present no proposal for providing quota for OBCs and Minority women within the proposed reservation in the Bill.

The reservation in favour of backward class of citizens rests with the State Legislatures under Article 243 (D) (6). Part IX of the Constitution does not have any provision for reservation on the basis of religion. Hence there is no scope to provide for reservation under these categories for women by amendment.

The above information was given by the Minister of Panchayati Raj Shri V. Kishore Chandra Deo in a written reply in the Lok Sabha

Service allocation for CSE-2010 has not been made so far.

The details of male and female officers recruited through Indian Forest Service Examination are as under: -

(M=Male, F=Female)

The Government has no proposal to give weightage to women candidates for Civil Services Examinations to minimize the gender gap in the All India Services.

This was stated by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Shri V.Narayanasamy in written reply to question in the LokSabha

University Grants Commission (UGC) has taken number of steps for greater access to women in higher education like Indira Gandhi Scholarship for Single Girl Child for pursuing Higher and Technical Education. Construction of Women’s Hostels, Development of Women’s studies in Universities and Colleges, Schemes of capacity building of Women’s Manager in Higher education, Post Doctoral fellowships etc. All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has a scheme to encourage tuition fee waiver for girl students by incentivizing the technical institutions and relaxation in norms for establishment of new technical institutions exclusively for women.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Human Resource Development Smt. D. Purandeswari, .

There is no separate fixed sanctioned strength for recruitment of Women in the Armed Forces. Women are recruited within the overall authorised strength of the respective Services. The present strength of women officers in the three Services of the Armed Forces i.e. in Army is 1055, in Air Force is 936 and in Navy 232.

The present strength of women officers in the three Services of the Armed Forces during the last three years and the current year (Service-wise), is as under:

Government, vide its order dated 26.9.2008, have granted permanent commission prospectively to Short Service Commission (Women) officers to be inducted in Judge Advocate General (JAG) Department and Army Education Corps (AEC) of Army and their corresponding Branch/Cadre in Navy and Air Force, Accounts Branch of the Air Force and Naval Constructor of the Navy.

This information was given by Defence Minister Shri AK Antony in separate written replies to Shri Rayapati Sambasiva Rao, Shri Anand Prakash Paranjpe and Shrimati Seema Upadhyay in Lok Sabha

Under Article 243D (4) of the Constitution of India, not less than 1/3rd of the seats of Chairpersons of District Panchayats shall be reserved for women. The State of Panchayats Report 2008-09 sponsored by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj shows that in 2010 the percentage of women members in District Panchayats was 35.80%. However, the figures of percentage of women Chairpersons of District Panchayats is not available separately.

A Nation wide study on Elected Women Representatives (EWRs) commissioned by Ministry of Panchayati Raj in 2007-08 had concluded that the earlier notions of women being mere proxies for male relatives have gradually ceded space to the recognition that given the opportunity to participate in the political system, women are as capable as their male counterparts. EWRs have used their office not only to mainstream gender issues but also to address the developmental needs of the community as a whole and also issues such as health, sanitation, early childhood care, drinking water etc., that have a special impact on the lives of women.

Viet Nam: preventing anaemia in women of reproductive age

In a developing country such as Viet Nam, children and young women often suffer from iron and folate deficiency, resulting in anaemia and increased risk of death. In addition, the negative consequences of iron deficiency anaemia on the cognitive and physical development of children and on the work productivity of adults are of major concern for the Government.

A simple solution is to provide a regular supplement of iron and folic acid for women during child-bearing years. Evidence suggests that this is a desirable intervention in those parts of the world where women do not yet have access to fortified foods or to diets that are high in bioavailable iron.

In 1998, the World Health Organization’s Western Pacific Regional Office initiated a weekly iron and folic acid supplementation (WIFS) project. The project was piloted in four Member States: Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the Philippines and Viet Nam.

Viet Nam became the first country in the Region to implement this anaemia prevention programme in women of reproductive age, using WIFS, combined with twice-yearly deworming. This was piloted in Than Mienh province in the late 1990s. The same initiative was introduced in 2006 in the Yen Binh and Tran Yen districts of Yen Bai province, covering 50 000 women ranging from 15 to 45 years of age. In 2008, the project was expanded to cover the whole province for a total of 250 000 women. Options to further scale up the programme from the provincial to national level are under discussion.

Thanks to the programme, anaemia prevalence in Yen Bai was reduced from 37.5% to 18%, and hookworm infestation decreased from 78.2% to 12%, according to a November 2010 evaluation of the nearly 5-year-old project. The birth weight of infants increased by about 130 grams. WHO is now working to support Yen Bai to secure a sustainable supply of iron and folic acid and to find viable ways to expand the programme.

The Philippines: a push for breastfeeding

A National Demographic Health Survey conducted in 2003 highlighted the dangerously low breastfeeding rates in the Philippines. The results came just after UNICEF and WHO launched the Global Strategy on Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF). In response to the survey and the strategy, the Philippines launched a national policy on IYCF and a five-year national action plan to provide strategic direction for improving breastfeeding practices in the country.

Among the follow-up initiatives is the Essential Newborn Care (ENC) protocol under the slogan “The First Embrace”, which encourages early skin-to-skin contact and non-separation of the newborn child from the mother in order to promote breastfeeding. The exclusive breastfeeding rate at 28 days of life in the pilot hospital was double the national average for all hospitals.

Supportive supervision for IYCF was stepped up in health centres, with regular visits by national and regional coordinators. Key IYCF indicators were included in the Integrated Child Survival Monitoring Tool.

Progress has been encouraging, but much work remains to be done. Other areas that need attention include:

• the implementation of the Essential Newborn Care protocol in hospitals to increase breastfeeding initiation rates within the first hour of life;
• reaching 1 million pregnant women through an integrated marketing communication effort;
• full implementation of the Expanded Rooming-In Act, which includes provisions for breastfeeding breaks and support for working women;
• the integration of IYCF in the curricula of all health workers; and
• the strengthening of implementation, monitoring and reporting of violations of the Milk Code, which regulates the marketing of breastmilk substitutes.

The latest national data (2008) show that the exclusive breastfeeding rate for the first six months remains unchanged at 34% and the rate of initiation of breastfeeding within the first hour remains at 54%. The figures may not be very dramatic, but they suggest the decline in breastfeeding in the Philippines is reversible.

Enhancement of reservation for women in Panchayats will facilitate more women to enter the public sphere and this will lead to further empowerment of women and also make Panchayats more inclusive institutions, thereby improving governance and public service delivery. The addition of word ‘rural’ before word ‘population1 occurring in the 1st Proviso of Clause (2)(iii) of the Rill will reflect appropriate demographic representation of categories of population for whom reservation is made.

At present, out of the total elected representatives of Panchayats numbering approximately 28.18 lakh, 36.87% are women. With the proposed Constitutional Amendment, the number of elected women representatives is expected to rise to more than 14 lakh. Having more elected women representatives would benefit the entire population of the States and UTs where Panchayati Raj is in existence.

Ministry of Panchayati Raj had moved a Bill for amendment to Article 243D of the Constitution on 26.11.2009 after approval of the Cabinet for enhancing reservation for women in (i) the total number of seats to be filled by direct election, (ii) offices of chairpersons and (iii) in seats and offices of chairpersons reserved for SCs and STs, to 50% in all tiers of Panchayats. The proposed official amendment, as indicated above, in the original Amendment Bill will be moved in the Lok Sabha at the earliest.

All States / UTs are parts thereof to which Part IX of the Constitution applies would be covered (Part IX does not apply to Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram, tribal areas of Assam and Tripura and hill areas of Manipur).

Background

The Constitutional Amendment Bill for enhancing reservation for women in Panchayats at all tiers from one third to one half was introduced in Lok Sabha on 26.11.2009 with the approval of Cabinet in its meeting on 27.08.2009. The Bill was referred to Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development by Hon’ble Speaker on 21.12.2009. The Committee has recommended that word ‘rural’ be added before word ‘population’ occurring in Clause 2 (iii) of the original Amendment Bill in order to maintain better demographic representation to SCs and STs class. In view of this, it has been decided to make official amendment accordingly in the Bill already under consideration of Lok Sabha.

***

So believes a large section of society, including women. Are women to be blamed for not being empathetic enough or is this too another form of patriarchy to which women have been conditioned?

MOST of the conferences, workshops and meetings on women’s issues end up with the same argument repeated time and again, that women are the worst enemies of women. In case of female foeticide, it is forcefully argued that it is the mother or grandmother who is most instrumental in ensuring that a girl is not born even if it means aborting a female foetus several times. Similarly, most of the dowry deaths, it is claimed, are caused by the women relatives of the husband. Symptomatically it may be true but the issue is in fact too complex to be understood in such a simplistic phrase.

FOR MORE READING. .

In 2008, 796 million adults worldwide (15 years and older) reported not being able to read and write and two-thirds of them (64%) were women (see Table 1). The global adult literacy rate was 83%, with a male literacy rate of 88% and a female literacy rate of 79%. More than half of those unable to read and write – 412 million – lived in Southern Asia. A further 176 million adults were in sub-Saharan Africa. Together, these two regions accounted for three-quarters (74%) of adults unable to read and write worldwide. Among MDG regions, adult literacy rates were lowest in Southern Asia (62%), sub- Saharan Africa (63%), Oceania (66%) and Northern Africa (67%) (see Figure 1). In Western Asia, the adult literacy rate was 85% and in the remaining regions, at least 9 out of 10 adults reported being able to read and write. In the developed regions and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), almost all adults were able to read and write. At the national level, the lowest literacy rates were observed in sub-Saharan Africa. Less than half of the adult population was literate in ten countries – Mali (adult literacy rate 26%), Burkina Faso and Niger (29%), Chad (33%), Ethiopia (36%), Guinea (38%), Sierra Leone (40%), Benin (41%), Senegal (42%) and Gambia (45%).

Gender disparity was greatest in Southern Asia, where 73% of all men but only 51% of women had the ability to read and write. The gender parity index (GPI) – the ratio of female to male literacy rates – was 0.70 in this region. Similar disparities existed in sub- Saharan Africa (GPI 0.75) and Northern Africa (GPI 0.76). Gender disparity in adult literacy was also observed in Western Asia (GPI 0.84) and Oceania (GPI 0.89). In contrast, Eastern Asia (GPI 0.94) and South-Eastern Asia (GPI 0.95) are close to gender parity in adult literacy while parity (defined as GPI values between 0.97 and 1.03) has been reached in the developed regions and in the CIS.

The adult literacy rate increased by about 8 percentage points globally over the past 20 years – an increase of 6% for men and 10% for women. Progress was strong in Northern Africa, where the rate increased by 20%, and in Eastern and Southern Asia, which saw an increase of 15%. In other regions, adult literacy rates increased since 1990 as follows: Western Asia 11%; sub-Saharan Africa 9%; South-Eastern Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean 7%; and Oceania 4%. In developed regions and CIS countries, the increase was negligible as they were already close to universal literacy.

Click here for full text in pdf: FactSheet2010_Lit_EN (or)

http://www.unesco.org/education/ild2010/FactSheet2010_Lit_EN.pdf

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics

FOR MORE READING. .

• EDUCATION FOR ALL : TARGETS AND ACHIEVEMENTS IN ELEVENTH PLAN
• EDUCATION OF DALIT GIRLS IN INDIA
• FEMALE EDUCATION IN INDIA
• LITERACY SCHEMES IN INDIA
• EDUCATION IN RURAL AREAS
• LITERACY RATE ON THE RISE, 11 TH PLAN TARGETS 80% – K.K.Pant
• TO BE EDUCATED IS TO BE FREE – Savera
• THE IMPORTANCE OF BASIC EDUCATION – Amartya Sen
• LITERACY RATE AMONG MINORITIES
• MEASURES TAKEN TO PROMOTE EDUCATION AMONGST EDUCATIONALLY BACKWARD MINORITIES
• HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA: CHALLENGES FOR A SOCIETY IN TRANSITION

FOR MORE READING. . .

If Muslim women are  represented in the House to the same extent as their share in the population, there would have been 440 MPs, or 40 times their actual number.

The Muslim women members in the current Lok Sabha are Tabassum Begum, Kaisar Jahan (both Bahujan Samaj Party) and Mausam Noor (Congress).

Majority of the Muslim women fought Lok Sabha elections as independent candidates, particularly from the seventh Lok Sabha elections onwards.

For instance, out of the nine Muslim women contestants for the seventh Lok Sabha, six were independents, two contested on the Indian National Congress ticket and one on the Janata Party ticket. All of them lost.

In the eighth Lok Sabha elections, out of the seven Muslim women candidates, five were independents, and one each belonged to the Congress and the Lok Dal. Only the Congress nominee got elected. Coming to the ninth Lok Sabha, out of the 11 women candidates, nine contested as independents and two as Congress candidates. In the 10th Lok Sabha, 14 Muslim women contested the elections, of whom six were independent candidates, two each were fielded by the Janata Party and the Janata Dal and one each by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Door Darshi Party (DDP), the Indian Congress Socialist (ICS), and the Congress. All of them lost.

In 1996 for the 11th Lok Sabha, a record number of 37 Muslim women tried their luck. The Congress fielded only two Muslim women (Mohsina Kidwai, a Congress loyalist, and Begum Noor Bano aka Mahatab Zamani of the royal family of Rampur), while the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Kranti Dal (BKD) and the Rashtriya Aikata Manch (RAM) nominated one each.

In the 12th Lok Sabha elections, a total number of 15 Muslim women contested, nine of them as independents, two on the Congress ticket and one each from the Janata Dal (J.D.), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Puthiya Tamizhagam (P.T.) and the Samata Party. However, none of them was elected.

In the 13th Lok Sabha elections, 26 Muslim women contested, of whom the number of women contesting as independents was again high. The BSP fielded three; the S.P., the JD (Secular) and the Congress two each; and the Janata Party, the P.T., the RJD, the Rajasthan Vikas Party, the Bharatiya Minorities Suraksha Mahasangh and the All India Minorities Front one each. (In 2004, out of 355 women contestants, 239 lost their deposits. Only 45 women got elected).

For the 14th Lok Sabha, the total number of Muslim women contestants was 21: six independents, three each from the BSP and the Congress, and one each from the S.P., the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the CPI(M), the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Samata Party, the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Democratic Party, the Samajwadi Jana Parishad, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and the Nav Bharat Nirman Party.

It appears from the above analysis that established national parties did not entertain Muslim women unless they already had a track record (as in the case of Mohsina Kidwai) or belonged to a dynasty with influence at the grass-roots level and the means to fight the election. The other national parties, including the Left, hardly showed any concern for representation of Muslim women. In comparison, though, the BSP and the Congress have given some space to Muslim women in this regard.

The Government has introduced a number of flagship programmes to enhance employment and income opportunities for poor people with special targets for women. It has also introduced a number of supporting social programmes to ensure enabling endowments of health education (including literacy) and skill building of marginalized population with special emphasis on women. Some of the key initiatives are as follows:

• The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has been enacted to    enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing 100 days of assured employment to every household.  It mandates that at least 30 per cent beneficiaries are to be women.  Latest data relating to implementation of the Scheme shows that close to 50% of the total beneficiaries of the Scheme are women against 30% prescribed. Of the 283.59 and 200.34 crore mandays employment days generated in 2009-10 and 2010-11, 136.40 and 95.30 employment days respectively were for women representing about 48% share.
• The Sampoorna Grameen Swarozgar Yojna (SGSY) in rural areas is a holistic livelihoodprogramme focused on SHGs of households below the poverty line.  This is now subsumed under the National Rural Livelihood Mission.  The programme earmarks 40 per cent oflabour opportunities for women.  Of the 20, 85,177 and 21, 09,796 Swarozgaris assisted in 2009-10 and 2010-11, 15, 02,285 and 14, 24,059 Swarozgaris were women representing 72.04% and 67.49% share in coverage.
• The Swarna Jayanti Shahri Rozgar Yojna (SJSRY) an employment generationprogramme implemented in urban areas earmarks 30 per cent of labour opportunities for women.  Under this, Urban Women Self Help Programme (UWSP) stipulates a minimum of five women to form a Self Help Group for setting up gainful group enterprise with bank linkage.  A subsidy of Rs.3.00 lakhs of 35% of the cost of the project or Rs.60, 000/- per member of the group, whichever is less, is released with the balance coming from bank loan and margin money.  Revolving fund assistance is also provided to Thrift & Credit Societies (T&CS) at the rate of Rs.2, 000/- per member subject to a ceiling of Rs.25, 000/- per T&CS.  Against a target of 21,250 beneficiaries in 2009-10, 64,994 were covered in 2010-11, against a target of 25,000 beneficiaries, 15, 1887 beneficiaries were covered.
• The Self Help Groups (SHGs) – Bank linkage programme of NABARD is aimed at financial inclusion by extending outreach to poor households in rural areas, making credit services available at their doorstep on a sustainable basis.  The Micro Enterprise Development Programme of NABARD is aimed at enhancing capacity of members of SHGs through skill upgradation in farm and non-farm sector.
• Mahila Samriddhi Yojana (MSY)/Mahila Kisan Yojana (MKY) : National Scheduled Caste Finance and Development Corporation (NSFDC) introduced MSY in 2003-04 to provide loans upto Rs.25,000/- per unit at a concessional unit rate of 4% per annum with a repayment period of three years for SC women, which was enhanced to a loan ceiling of Rs.30,000/- from 2006-07.  Similarly, NSFDC launched MKY with effect from 1.5.2008 to provide term loans upto Rs.50, 000/- at 5% per annum interest rate to SC women for income generating ventures in agriculture and allied activities.  Under MSY/MKY Schemes, 35,635 beneficiaries were covered in 2009-10 with loans of Rs.46.45 crore and 15,528 beneficiaries in 2010-11 with loan of Rs.26.58 crore.
• Similarly, National Backward Classes Finance and Development Corporation has MSY Scheme for women of backward classes with loan ceiling of Rs.25,000/- at 4% per annum interest and New Swarnima Scheme with loan ceiling of Rs.50,000/- at 4% per annum interest.  The coverage in 2010-11 under the above two schemes was33,680 and 5986 beneficiaries with loan disbursement of Rs.31.21 crore and Rs.7.26 crore respectively.
• Likewise, National Handicapped Finance and Development Corporation allows rebate of 1% on interest rate to women with disabilities under MSY.  In 2010-11, Rs.4.74 crore was disbursed as interest rebate to 1,214 women beneficiaries.
• The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) provides quality health care for women, with provision for institutional deliveries to reduce MMR and IMR.  RCH-II is a comprehensive flagship programme under NRHM which aims to reduce social and geographical disparities in access to, and utilization of quality reproductive and child health services.
• The reductions achieved in MMR and IMR in recent years, has to a large extent, been the result of the RCH-II programme implemented under the aegis of NRHM.  IMR has improved from 68(SRS2000) to 53(SRS2008) per 1000 live births.  There was a reduction in MMR from 301(SRS2001-03) to 254(SRS2008) per 1, 00,000 live births.
• The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (Education for All Campaign) launched in 2001-02 is a National Programme for universalisation of elementary education, which has a special focus on girls’ education and aims to target the ‘hardest to reach’ girls through residential schools, mid day meals and other incentives.
• The National Literacy Mission or Saakshar Bharat Mission, with its objective of extending educational options to those adults who have no access to formal education, emphasizes on female literacy as a critical instrument for women’s empowerment.  The Mission aims to target 70 million adults in the next five years, out of which 60 million will be women.
• For strengthening education among ST girls in Low Literacy Districts, a revised scheme with effect from 1.4.2008 is being implemented in 54 identified low literacy districts with more than 25% ST population and less than 35% female literacy rate as per 2001 Census. Further, tribal blocks other than 54 identified districts, which fulfil the said criteria are also covered, with priority given to Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PTGs) and Left Wing Extremism (LWE). The Scheme is implemented through VoluntaryOrganisations/NGOs as well as autonomous societies/institutions of State Governments/UTs and provide for only hostel at Block level for increasing regular, middle and secondary school attendance and primary school attendance at Panchayat level forupto 150 and 100 girls at each level respectively.  100% assistance is provided by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs for free education, boarding and lodging, books and uniforms, medical health, coaching incentives, awards, etc.  29272 and 21146 beneficiaries were covered involving financial outlay of Rs.40.00 lakhs and Rs.33.50 lakhs in 2009-10 and 2010-11 respectively.
• A number of programmes for skill upgradation of women are being run by Ministry of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Labour, Mission of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, etc. (PIB Features)

Skill upgradation:

Support to Training & Employment Programme for Women (STEP), a Central Sector Scheme launched in 1986-87, seeks to upgrade skill of poor and assetless women and provide employment on sustainable basis by mobilizing them in viable cooperative groups, strengthening marketing linkages, support services and access to credit.   The scheme also provides for enabling support services in the form of health check-ups, legal and health literacy, elementary education, gender sensitization and mobile crèches. The ultimate endeavour of each project is to develop the group to thrive on a self-sustaining basis in the market place with minimal governmental support and intervention even after the project period is over.  Since inception, around 250 projects have been provided financial assistance under the scheme.

The ten traditional sectors identified for project funding under STEP comprise of agriculture, animal husbandry, dairying, fisheries, handlooms, handicrafts, khadi and village industries, sericulture, waste land development and social forestry. The scope and coverage of the scheme is being broadened with introduction of locally appropriate sectors being identified and incorporated into the scheme.

Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls (RGSEAG) – ‘Sabla’, a Centrally-sponsored scheme was approved by the Government on 16.8.2010. The scheme is being implemented in 200 districts across the country on a pilot basis. In the remaining districts, Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY) continues to be operational as before.  However, SABLA has completely replaced Nutrition Programme for Adolescent Girls (NPAG) as all districts of NPAG are now part of the SABLA. The scheme, interalia, aims at vocational training for girls above 16 years of age for their economic empowerment.

Sabla is being implemented through the State Governments/UTs with 100 per cent financial assistance from the Central Government for all inputs other than nutrition provision for which 50 % Central assistance to States is provided. Anganwadi Centre is the focal point for the delivery of the services.

Objectives:

i.            Life Skill Education and accessing public services,

ii.            Vocational training for girls aged 16 and above under National Skill Development Program (NSDP)

iii.            The successful implementation of SABLA requires convergence with development activities/schemes of other Departments such as Health, Education, Youth Affairs, Labour, PRIs etc.

iv.            Nearly 100 lakh adolescent girls per annum are expected to be benefitted under the scheme. Against the allocation of Rs. 350 crorefor the year 2010-11, a sum of Rs. 330 crore (approx.) has been released to States/UTs. The year 2011-12 will be the first complete year of implementation of the scheme after which the physical and financial achievements made vis-à-vis the target would be assessed. A sum of Rs. 750 crore has been allocated for Sabla for 2011-12.

Central Social Welfare Board (CSWB)- In order to address the socio-economic needs of the women and children of selected eight most backward districts in the North Eastern region in the economic arena, Central Social Welfare Board has formulated the Integrated Scheme for Women Empowerment (ISWE). The scheme is being implemented on pilot basis since 2008 and has the objective of meeting the felt needs of the area by mobilizing community action, converging available services and resources of the area, income generation through feasible and sustainable activities for women and to provide services for health awareness, career counseling vocational training, preventing child trafficking and other social evils.

Economic Improvement:

National Mission for Empowerment of Women- The extent of empowerment of women from a holistic and macro-point of view is largely determined by 3 factors viz. economic, social and political identity. These factors are deeply intertwined and linked with many cross cutting linkages. It implies that if efforts in any one dimension remains absent or week, the outcome and momentum generated by the other components cannot be sustained. It is only when all these three factors are addressed simultaneously and made compatible with each other can women be truly empowered. Therefore, for the holistic empowerment of women, an inter-sectoral approach has to be adopted. The vision for socio-economic empowerment of women is to empower women economically and socially to end exploitation and discrimination enabling them to develop their full potential to be active participants in nation building, sharing the benefits of economic growth and prosperity. To achieve this vision, the National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW) was launched on 8th March. The objectives of the Mission are to:

I.                                       Ensure economic empowerment of women,

II.                                       Ensure that violence against women is eliminated progressively,

III.                                       Ensure empowerment of women with emphasis on health and education,

IV.              Oversee gender mainstreaming of programmes, policies, institutional arrangements and processes of participating Mininstries, institutions and organizations, and

V.              Undertake awareness generation as well as advocacy activities to fuel the demand for benefits under various schemes and progreammesand create, if required, structures at district, tehsil and village level with the involvement of Panchayats foe their fulfillment.

Economic Empowerment of Women is to be achieved through convergence of the schemes and programmes having focus on formation and promotion of SHGs so as to enable women to have access to micro credit and micro finance. Programmes like National Rural Livelihood Mission (erstwhile SGSY) of MoRD, Smayamsidha of MWCD and similar programmes of other Ministries and organizations would need to be converged to help the identified SHGs in a coordinated fashion. The Mission would see that access to credit by women SHGs under schemes of NABARD, Rashtriya Mahila Kosh, Financial institutions like NSCFDC/ NBCFDC/ NSKFDC of MoSJ&E and nationalized banks, is coordinated well and delivery of credit is timely.

In order to promote self employment opportunities and create livelihood options for women, it would ensure that training and skillupgradation under schemes/ programmes of MoS&ME, MoL&E ,MoRD, MWCD etc. are available to the women beneficiaries of SHGs and that there is no duplication of errors. Sustainability of income generation activities by women would be looked at and they would be ensured provision of adequate forward, backward and horizontal linkages. The relevant programmes of NABARD, RMK and participating Ministries as well as organizations with components of processing, storage, distribution and market networks would be put in a convergent mode to strengthen the livelihood of women.

The existing monitoring systems in place at the state and district levels would be utilized by the National Mission for tracking the effectiveness of convergence efforts in the area of economic empowerment. While at the district level, the District Collector as per the existing arrangement of the DRDA would be responsible for monitoring convergence efforts at the district level, the Chief Secretary of the State Government with technical inputs from the State Resource Centre to be set up for women (SRCW) will be made responsible at the state level. At the national level national level, the National Mission Authority (NMA) will be responsible for overall monitoring of actionable agenda requiring convergence and for which it will take the inputs from both the Mission Directorate and the National Resource Centre for Women (NRCW).

Rashtriya Mahila Kosh - (National Credit Fund for Women)

The Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (National Credit Fund for Women) was set up in 1993 with a corpus of Rs. 31 crore, against the backdrop of socio-economic constraints faced by poor women to access micro – credit from the formal financial system in the country, especially those in the rural and in unorganized sectors. The principal corpus has increased to Rs.100.00 crore by 2009-10.  The main objective of setting up of Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK) under the Department of Women and Child Development (now Ministry) was to provide micro-credit to poor women for various livelihood support and income generating activities at concessional terms in a client-friendly procedure to bring about their socio-economic development. The RMK is now being restructured as a NBFC with a corpus of Rs.500.00 crore.  Till 31.3.2011, 6, 87,512 women beneficiaries have been sanctioned Rs.307.52 crore and disbursed Rs.251.82 crore.  However, with the proposed induction of funds and conversion to NBFC, the projected yearly number of beneficiaries and loans are at the end of five year period in FY 2015-16 is likely to be 2,19,500 and Rs.492.02 crorerespectively.   Thus, there would be a quantum jump in the business volume of the organization through this restructuring.  Further, the fact that RMK extends loan upto maximum of 18 per cent interest per annum to SHGs/beneficiaries as against loans disbursed to beneficiaries through Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) under the NABARD’s SHG – Bank  Linkage Programme at the interest rate ranging between 30 and 40 per cent per annum and even higher and 60 to 70 percent rate charged by traditional moneylenders, would mean that the impact by way of higher incomes and welfare of the beneficiaries at  such an expanded scale of finance and at affordable rate, would be much more pronounced.

An RMK sponsored ‘Impact Study ‘ of 2008 shows 84% beneficiaries from rural areas and 16% from urban areas had undertaken activities like Animal husbandry (41%), Petty Shops (19%) and Agriculture (17%).  Their monthly income has increased between Rs.2000/- and Rs.4000/-.  54% reported increase in household expenditure, 96% reported improvement in food consumption pattern, and 87% reported increase in household assets.  Access to medical facility increased for majority of beneficiaries (88%).  There was increase in social status of 87% of beneficiaries.  98% women beneficiaries reported increase in their self-confidence and security with increased income through RMK.  Majority (95%) of the beneficiaries reported improvement in their standard of living and participation in micro finance led to decrease in domestic violence.

Gender Budgeting and Economic Empowerment of Women-

Budgets, which influence the overall level of national income and employment and reflect the priorities of the government regarding public investment, also promote gender equality within the national development framework.  The Government of India is committed to promoting gender equality and has adopted Gender Budgeting (GB) as a tool to address the inequalities faced by women. The purpose is to ensure the translation of Government’s policy commitments on gender equity into budgetary allocations.

To institutionalize the process of Gender Budgeting, the Government had initiated the formation of Gender Budget Cells (GBCs) within all Central Ministries/ Departments in 2005. These Cells are required to take up evaluation of existing Government programmes and schemes from a gender perspective and identify new areas of intervention for addressing the existing gender gaps. The flow of funds under certain women specific schemes/programmes are also being monitored through a Gender Budget Statement (Statement 20) as a part of the Union Budget Document since 2005.

MWCD, as the nodal agency, is pursuing with other Ministries/Departments to build their capacity so as to integrate gender concerns across sectors/schemes/programmes/ and ensure proper allocation and/or reprioritization of resources.  The number of Ministries reflecting their allocations in the Gender Budget Statement have gone up from nine in 2005-06 to 29 in 2011-12, with a magnitude of Gender Budget (BE) increasing from Rs.14379.00 crore (2.79%) in 2005-06 to Rs.78251.00 crore (6.22%) in 2011-12.

Support services:

Hostel for Working Women-

a. The Scheme of Working Women Hostel envisages provision of safe and affordable hostel accommodation to working women, single working women, women working at places away from their home-towns and for women being trained for employment.

The scheme has been revised with following salient features:

• Financial assistance for construction of hostel building to be given only on public land.
• Financial assistance available for rent of the hostels which are run in rented premises also.
• Provision for maintenance grant of hostel building (maximum Rs.5lakh) and one-time non-recurring grant for furnishings (@ Rs.7500 per beneficiary).
• State Government agencies, Urban Municipal Bodies, Cantonment Boards, Civil Society Organizations, Panchayati Raj Institutions, Self Help Groups, Recognized Colleges/Universities, and Corporate or associations like CII, ASSOCHAM and FICCI have been included under the revised scheme.
• The State Governments have been advised to disseminate and send project proposals as per the revised guidelines the Scheme. Since its inception in 1972-73, 890 hostels have been sanctioned under the scheme all over the country benefiting about 66,000 working women.

b. Working Women Hostel at Jasola, New Delhi: In view of increasing incidents of assault on women from the North-eastern States, the Ministry of Women and Child Development had undertaken construction of a working women hostel in the year 2008-09 exclusively for the working women of North East region working in and around Delhi. The construction of the hostel building at Jasola, New Delhi, has been completed in this current year. The six storied hostel building is having 167 living rooms with a capacity to accommodate 500 working women. This hostel also has provision of a day care centre for the children of working mothers.

Rajiv Gandhi National Creche Scheme-With a view to encourage women to join/ continue with gainful employment, Rajiv Gandhi National Creche Scheme for children of working mothers (RGNCS) was introduced in 2006. The scheme seeks to provide day care facilities to children in the age group 0-6 years from families with a monthly income of less than Rs. 12,000/-. In addition to being a safe space for the children, the crèche provide services like supplementary nutrition,pre school education, emergency health care etc.

The scheme provides for grant of Rs.3532/- per month for a crèche, limited to 90% of the schematic pattern or actual expenditure whichever is less, and the remaining expenditure is borne by the implementing agencies. Honorarium to crèche workers is fully funded under the scheme. Funds are separately provided to the implementing agencies for one time training of crèche workers.

The Central Sector scheme is implemented through Central Social Welfare Board (CSWB) and two national level mother NGOs i.e. Indian Council for Child Welfare (ICCW) and Bharatiya  Adimjati Sevak  Sangh (BAJSS).

Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY) – Conditional Maternity Benefit (CMB) scheme is a Conditional Cash Transfer scheme for pregnant and lactating women to contribute to better enabling environment by providing cash incentives for improved health and nutrition to pregnant and nursing mothers.  It is being implemented initially on pilot basis in 52 selected districts using the platform of ICDS. IGMSY is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme introduced in the FY 2010-11, under which the grant-in-aid is released to States/UTs.  The Scheme envisages providing cash directly to P&L women during pregnancy and lactation in response to individual fulfilling specific conditions. It would address short term income support objectives with long term objective of behaviour and attitudinal change.  The scheme attempts to partly compensate for wage loss to pregnant & lactating women both prior to and after delivery of the child.

Unfortunately developed countries and fast developing countries have low women representation in their respective legislatures.In the most powerful and most advanced nation of the world the United States , women constitute only 17 percent of legislature .The scientifically advanced nation like Japan can not atleast claim to be at the top in providing women due share in political power . In the world’s largest democracy of the world, India, women’s representation is meagre ten percent. But in a country like mozambique, a nation ravaged and pillaged by unending civil war and unabated famine like conditions, women constitute more than 30 percent of the legislature. In South Africa too, the country which was under brutal racist regime, women has more than 30 percent representation. These international experiences reveal that industrial development, economic prosperity and scientific progress do not automatically lead to political empowerment of women.

What difference does it make if more number of women are in parliament or state legislatures. Will it alter the nature of governance? This question can be countered in two ways. First, democracy is the most representative form of political organization the human civilization has heralded so far. There is no meaning of democracy when women who constitute nearly half of the population, have only eight percent representation. Due representation for women shall deepen the democratic process. Second, several studies have revealed that women in general are more responsive to issues of human development. According to the UNDP Human Development Report, India ranks 127 among 177 countries. Women suffer more than men due to lack of education, health, hygiene, sanitation, drinking water, nutrition etc. As a result, women are generally more concerned about these issues. Greater representation for women shall ensure a shift in the focus of development agenda towards human development and social development.

Women’s reservations will help those coming from influential political families. The ordinary women folk cannot avail this facility. This argument is partly true. But one should keep in mind the simple truth that law alone cannot change the society. But a conducive legislative atmosphere is essential for a progressive social change. It is true that influential people would utilize these reservations at the beginning. But in due course political leadership will emerge .This is also the experience with scheduled caste and scheduled tribe reservations. At the initial stage landlords have fielded their henchmen and enjoyed power by proxy. But the things have changed substantially over a period of time. If we closely look at Indian politics, we would notice two discernible trends. First, women who have entered politics might have used their family background at the beginning. But during the course of their political career they have emerged as political leaders on their own. Indira Gandhi was a shining example of such a trend. Her critics also accept that she was a leader with great political skills. Infact there are women political leaders who have grown in their political career without any influential family background. Uma Bharati, Mamata Banerjee are examples of such a trend. Therefore it is wrong to oppose women’s reservations on the ground that it will lead to deedhi, beebhi, bethi syndrome (sister, wife or daughters of influential political leaders getting benefited by these reservations).

The most important reason for stalling this bill is on the ground that these reservations would alter the social composition of parliament and legislatures. Some political parties like Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Samajwadi Party, etc are opposing the bill in its present form that it would benefit upper caste women. As a result, the composition of backward castes, minorities would be adversely affected. Such a possibility can not be ruled out. However, opposing on this ground is uncalled for. No law is final. Every law is evolved over a period of time. Women as social category suffer discrimination cutting across caste, class, religion in our society. We can begin with women’s reservations and in case the experience reveals that upper caste women are getting disproportionately higher share, the law can be suitably amended. Infact, the backward castes ( obc’s) constitute nearly one fourth of Indian parliament. This is a result of social churning process underway in Indian polity and society. In Indian politics, caste is an important criteria for selection of candidates. If a particular constituency is reserved for women, a backward caste woman shall replace a backward caste man as a candidate.

In view of these objections, several alternate measures are being suggested. The most important among them is to amend the Proportional Representation Act to mandate every political party to field women in at least one third of the constituencies. This seems to be an intelligent solution. But a closer scrutiny of the proposal reveals its true character. If this proposal is implemented as an alternative, political parties driven by patriarchal values, would field women in the constituencies they know they would loose in all probability. As a result, there will be one third of women contestants, but not one third of women in parliament and legislatures. But an amendment is suggested to prevent such a misuse. According to this amendment, every political party has to field women in at least in one third of seats in every state in parliamentary elections. Similarly, every political party has to field women candidates in at least one third of seats in every district in case of assembly elections. But, this amendment is not a complete solution to the possibility of misuse. Every political party can easily identify weaker seats and field women in those seats. It is in fact difficult to implement such a proposal in the era of coalitions, as all political parties do not contest all the seats. Yet an another alternative being suggested is that there shall be dual membership in one third of seats. Apart from a general member, in these one third seats, there will be a women member too. But this is not political empowerment of women as women’s status will be mere titular in nature. The real power would be wielded by the general member only.

Some of the other alternate proposals are as follows:

Instead of one third, we can begin with 10 or 15 percent and subsequently increase it. Those who are propose this alternative are questioning whether there is any sanctity for demanding one third. But such a proposal would defeat the aspirations of women’s movement. There may not be any arithmetical sanctity for the demand, but reserving one third of seats would mean a substantial increase from the present level of representation and shall be relatively proportionate to the women’s share in the population. Any attempt to dilute this proportion is absolutely undemocratic. The other proposals are also equally undemocratic. For instance, yet an another proposal is to keep the present strength untouched and create one third supernumerary seats and reserve them for women. But anyone who knows arithmetic would understand that this would not be one third. But it will be much less than that. In fact all such alternatives are a result of lack of political will on the part of our political party system as a whole. The often quoted argument for not fielding sufficient number of women candidates is the winnability factor. This argument lacks conviction given the fact that women constitute around 12 percent of Rajyasabha seats .The low level of women’s representation in the Rajyasabha provide an ample reflection of abysmal lack of commitment of our political system to the goal of political empowerment of women.

Therefore, the only alternative is to implement the commitment to enact women’s reservation bill. The act can be amended accordingly based on the experiences. In several countries of the world including that of advanced nations too, women have to struggle to get even voting right. But in India women got the right to vote as democratic India granted universal adult franchise with the dawn of independence itself. Let the Indian democracy create history once again by providing women the constitutional guarantee to adequate political representation.

EXPANDING

URBAN OPERATIONS

The penetration of micro finance institutions (MFIs) into the lower middle and working class neighbourhoods of Delhi began in the second half of the last decade. The expansion of these can be seen by their growth in the last three years. For example, Ujjivan Financial Services started its operations in 2008 and grew by ten times by the time of its last returns in March 2011. In the area of our survey itself, the company reported about 3000 members in Mangolpuri and 2000 members in Sultanpuri in March 2011, one year after it started its operations. In other areas like Narela and Jahangirpuri it showed a membership of 3000 and 4000 respectively by March 2011.  This is only one of the six big companies operating in the area visited by the surveyors. The others are SKS Microfinance, Share Micro Finance, Janalakshmi Financial Services, Basix (in partnership with Smriddhi) and Bandana, for whose operations the exact figures are unavailable at present.

The growth of MFI credit operations in the last five years has been facilitated by the failure of the central and state government’s model of micro finance to solve the problems of the urban poor. From the mid-1990s the National Bank for Rural Development (NABARD) had pioneered the self-help group bank linkage programme in the rural areas. By March 2010, about 6.7 lakh bank linked groups had been formed and only about 83,000 existed in the urban areas. In Delhi the total number of bank linked groups was about 2,047. The urban self employment under which the Delhi government promoted self help groups of poor women had only managed to form 43 self help groups and thereby benefit 481 women from 1997-2010.  Most of the other bank linked groups were formed by NGOs whose estimated number operating in the city was about 400-500, and who provided loans at interest rates of 25-28 per cent. This evidence shows that the government’s strategy of financial inclusion has had limited or virtually no impact in urban areas.

CLASS

FACTOR

The MFIs in the area are characterised by the fact that they only give loans to women, and usually refuse loans to any other male member of the family. The loans are given in the name of supporting self employment, but are almost never used in income generation activities. As one woman in K bloc of Mangolpuri said, “We have to say that we are going to take money for self employment and work otherwise we will not get any loans. But the truth is that most women in this area that I know use this loan for their other needs like health, marriage or any other requirement in the family.” They do this because loans from other informal sources were taken at a higher interest rate than those from micro finance institutions. As another woman from L Block stated, “Sometimes we take loans from local people (shop keepers etc) of Rs 300 hundred for ten days and pay an interest of Rs 100 over this amount”. Thus poor women with unstable livelihoods and low incomes only go to MFIs because they have no other option.

But there were exceptions to such cases, from a slightly higher income group. Of all the women interviewed in the area, only three or four of them were actually taking loans for investing in their small businesses. However such women came from a relatively higher income group, one of whom runs a training centre for tailoring and earns about Rs 10,000 per month on her own. She also has some properties to her name. Another woman runs a garment business and gets piece rated work done from other women. Thus the family income and class is an important deciding factor in deciding how much a woman benefits from her loan. Clearly those who earn good money and have running businesses find borrowing from MFIs a viable option.

THE COSTS OF

BORROWING

Most of the loans are given to women in groups of five or ten known as joint liability groups (JLG). The system of lending starts with small loans and interest rates ranging from 23 to 28 per cent. For example the first loan given by Ujjivan is of Rs 10,000 and has an interest rate of 26 per cent. If the woman repays this loan successfully than she is given another loan for Rs 15,000 and a third loan for Rs 21,000. The interest rates for the second and third loan may reduce depending on the record of repayment of the borrower, but they are never less than 23 per cent. Similarly SKS Micro finance lends at the rate of 26 per cent, and Bandana lends at the rate of 21-24 per cent or more depending on the nature and extent of loan taken. Interest rates were less than 23 per cent in only two cases where women had been borrowing continuously and larger amounts for their businesses. These businesses employing other women were given loans of 18-20 per cent in the fourth year of their borrowing. Hence, those who demonstrated a stable livelihood were paying lesser interest than the poorer women who had low incomes, once again demonstrating the socially unjust methods of this system.

But a deeper study of the interest shows, that the interest rates mentioned by the agent on the woman’s loan card are far less than the actual cost being incurred by the borrower. It is these additional costs that are the real source of the profits of the MFIs. Every woman paid a one time cost of Rs 150-200 at the time of borrowing the loan. As one woman told us, part of this money goes to the agent who mobilises the borrowers. Apart from this SKS India takes Rs 20 per month for insurance where as other companies took Rs 200 per year as insurance. This money has never been recovered by any borrower even when they encountered an accident. Domestic workers from Sultanpuri stated that they were refused loans when they asked for their insurance money to be returned. Women can also take ‘emergency’ loans from the company at a monthly interest rate of 10 per cent.

REPAYMENT WOES &

FRAUDULENT AGENTS

But in addition to this, it is the punishing repayment schedule, the ‘agent’ system that is the main source of exploitation of the women. Most loans are for durations of ten to eleven months with weekly repayment schedules. Payments are usually made to the agents of the company. In many cases these agents are young boys who are employed for this purpose. Neighbourhood women with good capacity to mobilise borrowers are also made agents and given commissions. The agents are meant to take weekly instalments and deposit them in the company’s office where they are entered into the computer against the name of the borrower. In this system, the women sometimes end up paying one instalment twice. Like one woman from Sultanpuri explained “We were regularly paying our instalments to the agent of the SKS company. But when we went to close the loan in the SKS office, the person there insisted that some instalments had not been paid.” This means that many a times the women are forced to pay their instalments for a second time. In another case the agent from Basix – Smriddhi insisted that the women had not paid up their full instalment and cut Rs 800 extra from her security deposit of Rs 1400 before closing the loans. There are also rare cases where agents attempted to run away with the money of the women. As another woman from Sultanpuri narrated, two boys of SKS ran away with Rs 32,000 of thirty women. Since these agents were known through local contacts, the women got together and have so far recovered Rs 10,000 from the agent. They have also resolved to continue the fight to get back the rest of the money.

When asked about how they manage to pay weekly instalments they state that they often have to take loans to pay instalments. In one case a woman from Mangolpuri had kept her fridge, two cylinders and all other household goods as collateral with a local neighbour in order to borrow money to pay her dues. She almost had an empty house. Sometimes these companies also force the women to deposit some of their home electronics or valuables as deposits if they or their joint liability groups are unable to repay the instalment. In another instance a woman from Sultanpuri reported that agents from Basix – Smriddhi had threatened to get goons to her house if she did not pay her instalment in time. She had to borrow money from her neighbours and make the payment. This pressure of timely repayment has reinforced rather than broken the vicious debt-trap in which the women find themselves. It has also created a cycle of continuous indebtedness on which the country wide survey by the AIDWA may throw greater light in the coming days.

BREAKING THE UNITY OF

WORKING CLASS WOMEN

Social networking and pressure are the main strategies used by the MFIs to contact new borrowers and also use social pressure to recover money. Most of the women come in contact with MFIs through people who they have known in some social context or the other. They also form JLGs with other women who are either their relatives or neighbours. One crucial difference between these JLGs and other self help groups is that the groups formed by the MFIs do not require any savings by the women. Rather these groups act as guarantors for individual loans granted to women. This means that all women in a particular group certify that they will repay each others loans in case the woman is not able to pay her instalment. Such an obligation puts the every day relationships of women under tremendous pressure. When a woman fails to pay her instalment she gets into conflict with other women and is some times forced to withdraw from her daily social interactions. Thus one woman narrated how she is now confined to her house and has stopped meeting her friends because she will be hounded by women to pay up her dues.

Hence we see that the experience of JLGs poses a challenge for the democratic women’s movement. The earlier experience of self help groups formed and run by the democratic women’s movements in other states was that they fostered a unity amongst women and prepared them for further struggles. In contrast the JLGs sow the seeds of conflict rather than unity amongst women. They also have the potential to force them into a debt trap and attempt to make them permanently dependent on MFIs, the new money lenders of the neo-liberal era. In this context pressure needs to be put on governments to extend its SHG-bank linkage programme to urban areas. This will help women to access cheap credit, marketing and training facilities so that they can pursue sustainable alternatives for income generation.  The women’s movement also needs to strategise how the formation of self help groups can further the campaign against the coercive and unfair practices of the MFIs and further the struggle for a more socially just credit system.

The status of women in India has been undergoing a sea-change. Supported by Constitutional guarantees to ensure dignity and equal opportunities, their active participation in all walks of life including education, politics, sport etc., has been growing. Taking note of women’s role in the nation-building activities, the Government had declared 2001 as the year of Women’s Empowerment by adopting a National Policy to offer “Swashakti” to women. Several laws have also been adopted to empower women socially, economically, legally and politically. Considering the role of rural India, the country’s backbone, the Government had taken several measures to strengthen Pachayanti Raj system with the active participation of women. This gave a boost to increase the number of women being elected to the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies, an indication to suggest their political empowerment.

National Policy for the Empowerment of Women – 2001

The principle of gender equality is enshrined in the Indian Constitution in its Preamble, Fundamental Rights, Fundamental Duties and Directive Principles of State Policy. The Constitution not only guarantees equality to women, but also empowers the State to adopt measures of positive discrimination in favour of women. Since the Fifth Five Year Plan (1974-78), India has been making a marked shift in its approach to women’s issues from welfare to development while keeping the empowerment of women as the central issue in determining their status in the society. The National Commission for Women was set up by an Act of Parliament in 1990 to safeguard the rights and legal entitlements of women. The 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution in 1993 have provided for reservation of seats in the local bodies of Panchayats and Municipalities for women, laying a strong foundation for their participation in decision-making at the local levels. India has also ratified various international conventions and human rights instruments committing to secure equal rights of women. Key among them is the ratification of the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1993.

Goals and Objectives

The goals of the National Policy is to bring about the advancement, development and empowerment of women. The objectives include creating an environment through positive economic and social policies for development of women to enable them to realise their full potential, access to health care, quality education, employment, equal remuneration and social security. They also include elimination of discrimination and all forms of violence against women and the girl child and changing societal attitudes.

National Mission for Empowerment of Women

The Government has set up a National Mission for Empowerment of Women early this year and the same has been notified on 8th of March, 2010. The Mission aims at implementing the women-centric programmes in a mission mode to achieve better coordination. The Ministry of Women and Child Development is administering the Support to Training and Employment Programme of Women (STEP) scheme with a view to help assetless and marginalised women become economically self-reliant. The scheme also aims at providing training for skill upgradation, development of entrepreneurial skills, asset creation, mobilisation into small viable groups to enable beneficiaries to take up employment-cum-income generation activities.The Ministry has also launched the “Priyadarshini” scheme to empower vulnerable groups of women in a holistic and sustainable manner by addressing their social, political, legal, health related and economic problems through vigorous capacity-building by organising them into Self-Help Groups (SHGs).

Swarjjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY)

The Ministry is also implementing the Centrally sponsored scheme. The scheme is desinged to promote self-employment oriented income generating activities for the BPL households in the rural areas. Special safeguards have been provided for vulnerable sections by way of reserving 50 per cent benefits to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, 40 per cent for women, 15 per cent for minorities and 3 per cent for disabled persons. Since its inception, about 37 lakh SHGs have been formed and 134 lakh swarozgaris assisted, out of which, approximately 70 lakh (52 per cent) are women. The Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK) scheme extends micro-credit support for income generation to poor women grouped into SHGs in unorganised sector.

India Vision 2020

India Vision 2020 document, while discussing about women in the labour force has, inter alia, mentioned that secure child care support services are necessary for working women. The 11th Five Year Plan document of the Planning Commission incorporated various schemes and programmes for women and child development. It also mentions about the setting up of creches in unorganised sector and restructuring and revamping of the existing Rajiv Gandhi National Creche Scheme for the children of working mothers.

Helplines for Women

As per 2001 census, there are 34.3 million widows and 2.34 million divorced and separated women in the country. The Ministry of Women and Child Development is implementing shelter-based schemes namely “Swadhar” and “Short Stay Homes” under which financial assistance is provided to the implementing agencies for providing support services to women in difficult circumstances. Under the scheme of Integrated Programme for Older persons implemented by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, financial assistance is provided to NGOs for running and maintenance of Multi Facility Care Centre for older widowed women. The Ministry of Rural Development is implementing Indira Gandhi National Widow Pension Scheme (IGNWPS) and Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme (IGNOAPS), under which central assistance is given towards a monthly pension of Rs.200 to widows below the poverty line in the age group of 40 to 64.

Women’s Leadership Summit 2010

The Ministry has organised a Women’s Leadership Summit in New Delhi on 6th of March this year as part of the celebrations for the International Women’s Day. The objective of the Summit, inaugurated by the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, was to showcase empowered women, those who had excelled in different fields. The central theme of the Summit was Inclusive Growth and Empowering Women of Rural India. Several women achievers spoke on challenges and opportunities for women in diverse fields such as corporate sector, financial services, agriculture, science, media, panchayati raj, sports, culture, education and law. Government’s 100 Days Action Plan

As part of the 100 days Action Plan, the government had proposed several measures to increase the representation of women. It has also proposed Constitutional amendment to provide 50 percent reservation for women in Panchayats and in urban local bodies and to increase the representation of women in government jobs.

India’s Tirade Against Anti-Woman Activities

The Government has been adopting several stringent measures to uphold the status of women in India by launching a tirade against injustices done to them. They included protection against domestic violence, stopping crime against child and women, human trafficking, sexual harassment at work place, eliminating beggary among women and street children, child marriages, harassment in dowry related matters, malnutrition among women and children, providing relief and rehabilitation to rape victims. The Centre has allocated Rs.11,000 crore to the Ministry of Women and Child Development for the year 2010-11, an increase of around 50 per cent over last year’s Budget Estimates of Rs.7,350 crore. (PIB Features).

Other woman issues

Salient Features

50:50 per cent sharing between the Centre and the States of nutrition provision (600 calories and 18 to 29 gram of protein) at the rate of Rs.5 per beneficiary per day for 300 days a year for 11 to 14 years out of school girls and all girls in the age of 15 to 18 years. A provision of Rs.3.8 lakh per ICDS project per annum has been made for various components of the scheme like training kit at each Angawadi center, National Health Education, Life Skill Education, purchase of Iron Folic Acid Tablet for mothers. Continuation of Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY) in remaining districts from funds of SABLA and utilization of savings available under KSY and RGSEAG-SABLA in 200 districts are the other salient features of the Scheme.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development has formulated the SABLA scheme to address multi-dimensional problems of adolescent girls between 11 to 18 years. An allocation of Rs.1,000 crore for the scheme in 2010-11. The Government has approved a cumulative 7075 ICDS projects and 14 lakh Anganwadi Centres across the country. Of these, a total of 7012 projects and 13.67 lakh AWCs have been sanctioned as on 31st of May 2010. Out of the approved ICDS, 6560 are operational. Keeping in view the expansion under the Scheme, the allocation for ICDS was enhanced from the Budget Estimates of Rs. 6,705 crore to Rs. 8162 crore for the year 2009-10. For the year 2010-11, an allocation of Rs. 8700 crore has been made, which is higher than the allocation of the previous year.

Survey On Malnutrition

Malnutrition is the key issue. The National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (NNMB) has carried out sample surveys on diet and nutritional status of rural (2005-06) and tribal population (2007-09) in 9 states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal. As per the report of 2001-03 by the Registrar General of India on causes of deaths among 0 to 4 years due to nutritional deficiencies is 2.8 per cent. As per the National Family Health Survey, the underweight children below three years of age has declined from 42.7 per cent in 1988-99 to 40.4 per cent in 2005-06. However, there has been an increase in the anemia levels as anemia in children (6 months to 35 months) has risen from 74.3 per cent to 78.9 per cent. Similarly in women aged 15 to 49 years, the anemia has increased from 51.8 per cent to 56.2 per cent. Though malnutrition is not a major cause of infant death, it can increase morbidity and mortality by reducing resistance to infections. As per the Sample Registration System (SRS), Registrar General of India, the infant Mortality Rate has declined from 57 per thousand live births in 2006 to 53 per thousand live births in the year 2008.

A number of measures has been taken by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare like Supply of Vitamin-A supplementation for children till the age of 5 years, Iron Folic Acid supplementation for children up to 10 years, pregnant and lactating women, promotion of iodized salt, zinc supplementation for treatment of diarrhea in children above two months.

Combating Malnutrition

The problem of malnutrition is a multi-faceted and multi-sectoral in nature requiring coordination and convergence between the different sectors and at all levels. The Government, which has been according high priority to the overall issue of malnutrition and particularly in respect of children, adolescent girls and women is implementing several schemes, which have an impact on the nutritional status of the people. These schemes besides ICDS projects include, Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY) and Nutritional Programme for Adolescent Girls (NPAG), National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), Mid-Day Meal Scheme (MDM), Drinking Water and Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC), Swarjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY), Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) and Public Distribution System (PDS). The ICDS scheme provides a package of six services – supplementary nutrition, pre-school non-formal education, nutrition and health education, immunization, health check-up and referral services. Three of the services (immunization, health check up and referral services) are delivered through the public health system of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The Government has taken various steps, which include universalisation of the scheme with special focus on SC/ST and minority habitations, revision in cost norms as well as the Nutritional and Feeding norms of the Supplementary Nutrition component of ICDS. The Centre has adopted the standards proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 15th of August 2008 to identify malnutrition in children. The National Nutrition Policy of 1993 and the National Nutrition Action Plan of 1995 envisage establishment of State Nutrition Councils in the states. This has been emphasized during the meetings held with the States. Recently, the Chief Secretaries of all states have been addressed to ensure that the State Nutrition Action Plans factor in the availability of services provided at AWCs under the ICDS and also ensure that expansion is undertaken in a manner that it meets inter-alia the nutritional and health demands of the beneficiaries particularly the marginalized sections in areas having high incidence of poverty and deprivation. The Women & Child Development Ministry has considered a Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme for Maternity Benefits called Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY) on a pilot basis to provide cash transfers to pregnant and lactating women in response to fulfilling specific conditions. The objective of the scheme is to improve the health and nutrition status of pregnant and lactating women. A budget allocation of Rs.390 crore has been made for the scheme during the current financial year. (PIB Features)

*Freelance Writer

The hollow claims being made by the UPA- II government regarding “inclusive” growth stand thoroughly exposed by these grim statistics. There can be no celebration about the rise in the overall sex ratios, when the impact of this consistent decline threatens to undermine whatever gains are being touted. What is more, it also raises fundamental questions about the government policies and interventions, which have obviously done little to redress the imbalance in child sex ratios, but rather, have contributed to aggravating the situation further.

To address the underlying issues, and chalk out a plan of action, a joint meeting was organised by AIDWA, and the Indian Schoolfor Women’s Studies and Development (ISWSD), in New Delhi on April 30, 2011.

Many prominent academicians, and members of ISWSD  including – Rajni Palriwala,  Indu Agnihotri, Malini Bhattacharya, Professor Mohan Rao and representatives from organisations like Sama, Young Women’s Christian Association, Students’ Federation of India, Working Women’s Co-ordination Committee (CITU)and All India Kisan Sabha etc, participated in the meeting, which was presided over by AIDWA vice president Kirti Singh.

AIDWA activists and leaders from the states of Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra and West Bengal  placed their state experiences, as part of an organisational meeting. Kiran Moghe, AIDWA national secretary and Jagmati Sangwan, AIDWA vice president gave graphic accounts of the struggles undertaken in Maharashtra and Haryana to force the administration to implement the PcPNDT Act. They raised many serious questions about the political commitment of the government to enforce it.  A draft resolution was placed by AIDWA general secretary, Sudha Sundararaman, which was greatly enriched and strengthened by the ensuing discussion.

The meeting unequivocally came to the conclusion that the fall in child sex ratio represented a damning indictment of the policies of the UPA-II government and an exposure of its utter failure to implement the PcPNDT Act.

FERTILITY DECLINE &

DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE

The aggressive “population stabilisation” programme, preceded by the family planning drive launched by successive governments have contributed to the sharp decline in child sex ratios. This is because smaller families are being propagated and popularised within a highly patriarchal and gender discriminatory social construct. Parents too now wish to have less number of children, but, the fall in growth rate of population after decades of stagnation appears to have been achieved primarily at the cost of the girl child. When parents decide to have one child, or two children, the preference is for the son- even without sex selective abortions. In a state likePunjab, it was observed during field research that families with one son prefer not to have another child at all!

Though the two child norm has been formally given up, many states continue to implement it, with incentives and disincentives still being included in different ways. Women with more than two children cannot contest panchayat elections in some states. InMaharashtra, the Cong/ NCP government has passed a law that families with more than two children will have to pay one and a half times more for irrigation water.

Modern families want at least one son, and not more than one daughter – and methods to achieve this ideal are being resorted to without compunction. Indeed, surveys have shown that higher literacy figures and economic growth provide no guarantees against the crime of sex selection. It is in urbanised, fast growing metros that sex selective abortions are gaining popularity, and acceptance. In rural areas, the girl child is neglected after birth, her health needs are not attended to, and she is allowed to die. Such is the grim reality of aversion to daughters.

SEX SELECTIVE

ABORTIONS

Under the PcPNDT Act (1994) sex selection is illegal, and punishable. However, in reality sex selective abortions are being conducted with impunity. There is a well developed nexus between the medical profession, the technicians, and the large companies selling the ultra sound machines. This profitable market exists because of the unwillingness of the government to take stringent action against those violating the law.

When AIDWA did a sting operation in Pune district of Maharashtra against a leading doctor, it discovered that the Act had not even been notified in that district even ten years after the Act had been put into place! A similar lapse undermined the efficacy of the law in Haryana as well!

Collusion between the profit makers, corruption and the clout wielded by unethical and corrupt members of the medical profession (often supported by their associations) have rendered the Act toothless. Clinics get sealed due to our struggles, and then, are back in action within a short period.  So-called monitoring committees at all levels are dominated by those who are being monitored and activists, experts etc are conspicuous by their absence on these committees.

The “F” forms that should be analysed and monitored to identify wrongdoers are gathering dust in office rooms.

The Central Supervisory Board set up to monitor and oversee the implementation of the PcPNDT Act did not hold a single meeting over three years. It has been reconstituted recently, in a most non transparent manner. States too are following suit, which will render these bodies ineffective once more.

The linkages with the medical service as business are becoming more advanced, with the advent of newer and newer technologies. The phenomenal expansion in ART centres indicates what a lucrative business enterprise it has become- the potential for its misuse for sex pre selection is extremely high, but there is no regulation. Thus, there is a serious lack of political will in the implementation of the PcPNDT Act by the government.

SOME DISTURBING

QUESTIONS

Technology is not neutral. It was noted that the introduction of a “silent observer”- a hard disc placed in the ultrasound machine to monitor pregnancies more closely- in some states and regions is an unwanted intrusion that could lead to harassment and victimisation of the woman. Though proper screening and monitoring is important, the procedures for monitoring pregnancies cannot become an instrument for invasion into the privacy of individuals.

The numbers of ultra sound machines are increasing by the day, and there are now mobile clinics catering to outlying areas. Pregnant women are being subjected to a number of ultrasounds, for which there is no necessity, and indeed this can be harmful for the unborn baby, as declared by the radiologist’s association in the US. Privatisation is breeding a culture of excess screening and medical tests, a trend that is being exploited by the unscrupulous private health providers. A comprehensive legislation to safeguard public health rights must be formulated to address such concerns.

The discussion also highlighted the inefficacy of government schemes due to the many conditionalities that are being imposed on selection of beneficiaries, as also the stereotyped mindset that went into their formulation.

The participants noted that the neo liberal paradigm of development had led to devastating implications for women. They underscored the complex link between the market economy, and the erosion in women’s status. The agrarian crisis, and the consequent further devaluation of women’s work has led to her increased impoverishment and marginalisation. Unemployment and underemployment among women is high. The denial of nutrition and health care, made worse by the introduction of user fees in health institutions, the lack of a universal PDS, accompanied by a decline in the consumption of food grains, the repeated increase in prices of essential commodities, the huge increase in dowry, without property rights and asset creation for women – all these have created a matrix where the girl child is supremely unwanted. While dowry demands are escalating, property rights for girls are not implemented properly. In Haryana, the daughter who inherits property from the father is expected to sign over her share to her brothers- otherwise she is subjected to a great deal of harassment. The growing incidence of violence against women and girls transforms them into even more of a burden.

Thus, there are a plethora of factors leading to the girl child being killed or neglected to die before or after she is born, and it is necessary to address these comprehensively, for the government to arrest the decline in child sex ratios.

The meeting resolved to launch a nation-wide campaign and struggle highlighting the following issues:

• The government should implement the PcPNDT Act stringently and show political will to curb this crime.
• The Central Supervisory Board, and the equivalent state mechanisms, all the monitoring committees and appropriate authorities should comprise of members who have both knowledge of the law, and proven commitment to upholding the rights of girl children. All monitoring committees must be constituted properly. Swift punitive action should be taken against the offenders.
• The two child norm should be withdrawn with immediate effect, including all related incentives and disincentives.
• Existing schemes for girl children must be critically examined and reformulated such that they are universal and are not linked to any kind of conditionalities and stereotypes.
• Monitoring for proper implementation of the Act must not violate privacy rights of pregnant women.  The introduction of ‘silent observer’ in ultrasound machines should be reconsidered in this context.
• Rampant privatisation of public health care should be curbed with an umbrella legislation on healthcare.  Misuse of new technologies like the Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) for sex selection should be prevented.

A call was given for state units of AIDWA to hold protest demonstrations and other programmes in the last week of May demanding proper implementation of the PcPNDT Act, and submit memorandums to the concerned authorities and officials on this issue.

In the Capital, there is an alarming rise in cases of gang-rapes, especially in moving cars. Recently a BPO employee from the North east was abducted at her doorstep when she returned home from work and gang-raped.Burning girls for dowry or killings in the name of honour are huge blots on the country’s so-called modern face. Education and the wider participation of women in the workforce may have led to their economic independence, but our patriarchal society still finds it difficult to digest that women have started voicing their views or making their own choices in life. If a girl refuses to marry the boy of her parents’ choice, she is butchered or tortured. There have been umpteen instances of young boys stabbing, shooting or throwing acid on girl’s faces because of rejection and when their advances are spurned.In the last one year itself, many shocking cases have come to light all over the country.These are just the tip of the iceberg since most cases go unreported for fear of reprisal and social humiliation. What’s more, some of the perpetrators of such crimes are elected representatives. In Bihar, a woman victim, teacher in a school, subjected to rape for several years, finally stabbed her perpetrator, an MLA, to death in broad daylight. In Banda, UP, a young Dalit girl mustered enough courage to file a rape complaint against a ruling party legislator. It is high time that the major political parties put the issue of crimes against women on their agenda, and not leave it to women’s organisations to do this.The National Crime Records Bureau data for 2009 revealed what had been suspected all along – that there was a rise in crimes against women with Delhi accounting for nearly 25 per cent of all rape cases. Many of those targeted for rape are young girls, either working or studying. At least these are the cases that get reported. For hundreds of women working in inhospitable conditions like brick kilns or construction, the stories are untold.As compared to 2008, there was a rise of 4.1 per cent in the number of crimes against women in the country. In 2008, a total of 195,856 cases were reported and this rose to 203,804 in 2009.

Crimes against women include rape, kidnapping and abduction, dowry death, torture, molestation, sexual harassment, importation of girls, immoral traffic and indecent representation of women.But on February 11 this year, at a national consultation on crimes against women, the Delhi Police Commissioner Sandeep Goel tried to debunk the theory that crimes against women had gone up. He pointed out that in 2005 658 rape cases were reported, but over a six-year period the figure had dropped to 507 in 2010. This figure was slightly higher than 2009 but lower than the previous years. He ratcheted off more statistics saying that the rape figure per lakh of population in Delhi was much lower than developed cities like New York. However, he was reminded that it was only the reported cases that were highlighted in the media and not the scores of unreported ones.What is shocking is not that the police commissioner sought to take solace in the very miniscule and marginal drop in the figures, but that there was not even the slightest admission of the problem. The fact that women and young girls feel more and more insecure in a city which was being showcased on the global ramp by the government during the Commonwealth Games, was completely lost on the police chief.There is no doubt that there has been a visible increase in the physical presence of women in general in public spaces and this has accompanied a greater intolerance towards them. It is also a fact that as more and more young people are exercising their democratic right under the Constitution of choosing their own partners, the reaction to their freedom is manifested in extreme violence, including killing of the concerned couple by their own parents and relatives. What is also disturbing is the total lack of social support to these youngsters. Often, close relatives of victims are found justifying such acts in the name of honour. These warped values were seen in one case in Delhi, where the four rapists in a gang rape case were arrested but their entire village came out in their support.The biggest setback comes when officers of the law and leading political parties do not take these issues seriously. They view them as mere incidents and refuse to see a pattern in the violence. They refuse to see how in the era of liberalization, crimes against women and minor children have not just seen a steady rise, but are taking a barbaric colour. In the period where consumerism is encouraged as opposed to real growth in terms of employment generation and a robust social security system, women are viewed as objects of consumption.

Their resistance to denial of self-choice and patriarchy is again met with increased violence.The contradictions are out in the open. While there is immense choice (for the few) to pick out the kind of homes they want, cars, LCD televisions, holiday spots, the same choice is not extended to young people in their own lives.. This is the outcome of the skewed growth system in the country.The widening economic disparities have somehow left the women’s question far behind. It was, therefore, shocking that a Bill to prevent sexual harassment at the workplace excluded domestic workers from its purview on a specious ground. Inevitably, this drew a lot of protest but the Bill has not been revised. Domestic workers and home-based workers, who are predominantly women, are now recognised as a big category of workers in the unorganised sector but there is no policy to safeguard their interests.The other reason that could be a contributory factor to rising crimes is that of the declining child sex ratio in the country.

There may not be any direct violence-skewed sex ratio connection but it is precisely in those societies where there are strong feudal and patriarchal values, that violence against women takes more acute forms. A recent survey by ASSOCHAM also showed that most women in Delhi were not aware of their legal rights.The situation for women has only worsened in the last two decades of liberalisation and the increase in crimes against them and the vulnerable show that there is something terribly wrong in the development model being followed where the accumulation of wealth is the mantra and monetary success and profit are touted as divine values.

“Flexible schedules are more productive and increase work intensity”

Due to flexi working hours, childcare facilities at offices and options of working from home, women professionals are moving up corporate ranks and managing home as well with aplomb,

Above findings have come to fore following conclusion of a survey conducted under aegis of ASSOCHAM Social Development Foundation (ASDF), on “Flexi HR policies make working attractive for women” in which 4,000 respondents was made up of 2,500 women (67 per cent) and 1,500 men (33 per cent). Forty-four percent of respondent were between 30 and 45 years old, 39 per cent were between 25 and 30. Most respondents were at the professional level (51 per cent). Thirty-seven per cent of respondents were in the PSU category and 3 per cent are at the director level and above.

Most respondents were married (60 per cent). Twenty-seven per cent were single, 9 per cent were divorced, separated or widowed. The cities involved in the survey included all metros and places like Delhi, Mumbai,Lucknow, Chandigarh, Pune, Bangalore, Ahemdabad, Udaipur, Shimla, Dehradun, Indore, Patna, Kochi and Chennai.

”There’s a similar shift been in preferences among men with minor children, just 18% of these women prefer ideal situation would be to work full time outside the home. Nearly 82% of all women say that flexible hour’s ideal situation for them, say Mr. D S Rawat, Secretary General, ASSOCHAM.”

Mothers with younger children (ages 0 to 4 years) also are less likely to prefer full-time work today. 82% of mothers with younger children prefer flexi hours, childcare facilities at the office, working from home, while 16% prefer working outside the home as a fulltime work. On the other side, 52% male prefer the flexible hours in the office, reveals the findings of the survey.

The survey also highlight that there are also differences in the way working moms and at-home moms assess the job they’re doing as parents. Mothers working full-time give themselves slightly lower ratings as parents, on average, than do at-home mothers or mothers employed part-time.

Working women face a lot of domestic hiccups and often have to make a tough decision where they have to work or stay at home. Flexible working hours, option to work from home, and a friendly leave policy’ help them juggle roles, says majority of the women.

Mr. Rawat also said that the Indian companies are also adopting work-from-home and flexible working hour policies to provide an ideal working atmosphere for women. More and more companies are fast adapting their policies to suit the requirement of women and help provide options like ‘work from home’, ‘flexi hours’ ‘maternity break, etc.

Today the working young women appear to be as ambitious as men when it comes to eagerness to climb the career ladder, and 46 percent women contribute even more to family income than their husbands, added the survey.

85% of the male said that they want to marry working women because they can balance both work and home very well.

A large majority of respondents (72 per cent) agreed that flexible working arrangements are simply a modern tool to allow persons to retain their productivity, while increasing their flexibility in choosing a work method more compatible to their work life fit.

Most respondents (56 per cent) said that flexible working arrangements should be available to all persons irrespective of their situation if it maintains or increases productivity and work life fit/balance.

A lesser majority (22 per cent) are of the view that flexible working arrangements are suitable only for staff with a strong sense of responsibility.

23% of the working women said that that their organisation provides benefits to pregnant women by allowing them to have a three-month flexi-hour working facility in addition to maternity leave. 71% of women said that HR policies are becoming more friendly in Indian companies.

Flexibility – the impacts on:

* reducing absenteeism

* retaining staff

* reducing stress and increasing well-being

* reducing the cost of commuting

* improving customer service and satisfaction.

THE GIST:

* Workers with flexible hours not only are more satisfied with their jobs; they also work more intensely.

* Researchers believe intensified work effort given to employers as exchange for more flexible schedule

The findings, published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, add to the evidence base on the benefits of breastfeeding.

‘Our results provide even more evidence for the benefits of breastfeeding,’ says Maria Quigley of the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at Oxford University, who led the work with Katriina Heikkilä. ‘Mothers who want to breastfeed should be given all the support they need. Many women struggle to breastfeed for as long as they might otherwise like, and many don’t receive the support that might make a difference.

There are a number of well-known health benefits of breastfeeding: for example, breastfed babies have lower rates of infections and mothers have a reduced risk of breast cancer. A range of other health and child development benefits have also been suggested – such as higher IQ, fewer behavioural problems and lower levels of obesity – but the evidence for these can be inconsistent across different studies.

The researchers from the University of Oxford, along with colleagues from the Institute of Social and Economic Research (University of Essex), University College London and the University of York, set out to investigate associations between the duration of any breastfeeding and child behaviour at age 5 years.

‘We found that children who were breastfed for at least four months were less likely to have behavioural problems at age 5,’ says Maria Quigley of Oxford University.

However, that observation might not have been the direct result of breastfeeding – it could have been down to a number of factors,’ she explains. ‘As a group, mothers who breastfed for four months were very different socially to those who formula fed. They were more likely to be older, better educated and in a higher socio-economic position, on average.

Having controlled for these and other differences between the groups, we found there was still a 30% lower risk of behaviour problems associated with prolonged breastfeeding.

The team used a nationwide survey of infants born in a 12-month period in 2000–2001 called the Millennium Cohort Study. This cohort study, for which the data are openly available, involved carrying out home interviews with parents when their children were 9 months old, with further follow-up interviews roughly every two years.

The Oxford researchers included data for over 9,500 mothers and babies born at full term to families of white ethnic background. They used answers from the initial interview when the children were 9 months old to determine whether mothers had breastfed and how long for.

They combined these data with the results of a standard questionnaire used for identifying children with possible behavioural problems. This was filled out by a parent (normally the mother) when their child was 5 years old. Children scoring in the top 10% are classified as having an abnormal score.

Abnormal scores in the questionnaire can result from a range of emotional (eg clinginess, anxiety), conduct (eg lying, stealing) or hyperactivity (restlessness) problems. ‘We’re not necessarily talking about tearaway, unmanageable 5-year-old kids,’ says Maria Quigley. ‘It might be unusual anxiousness, restlessness, inability to socialise with other children or play fully in groups.’

The raw figures showed that 16.1% of formula-fed babies (530 out of 3,292 formula-fed babies) had abnormal scores at age 5. Of the babies breastfed for at least four months, 6.5% had abnormal scores (179 out of 2,741 babies).

However, these two groups of mothers and children are very different across a number of measures, such as mother’s age, education and socio-economic position. It could be that breastfeeding is serving as a proxy for something else causing the difference in rates of behavioural problems among the children.

So the researchers then adjusted their analysis to account for all these potential factors. Children who were breastfed for at least four months were still about 30% less likely to have behavioural problems at age five.

It is possible to suggest possible causes for the relationship between breastfeeding and reduced likelihood of problem behaviour. It may be that there is something in the breast milk that leads to improved neurological development and behavioural learning in children. Or the close physical contact during breastfeeding may lead to more mother-baby interaction and better communication. Or the reduced illness experienced by babies who are breastfed.

‘We just don’t know whether it is because of the constituents in breast milk which are lacking in formula, or the close interaction with the mum during breastfeeding, or whether it is a knock-on effect of the reduced illness in breastfed babies. But it does begin to look like we can add fewer behavioural problems as another potential benefit of breastfeeding.

In the first phase, the scheme will cover 25% of the population i.e. 1.5 crore girls in the age group of 10-19 years in 152 districts of 20 states. It is expected that with making sanitary napkins available at the village level, the usage of sanitary napkins will increase. Easy access and convenient pricing are the strategies adopted by the Ministry for increasing usage of safe and hygienic practices during menstruation. The ASHA will get an incentive of Re. one on sale of each pack, besides a free pack of sanitary napkins per month.

Evidence suggests that lack of access to menstrual hygiene (which includes sanitary napkins, toilets in schools, availability of water, privacy and safe disposal) could contribute to local infections including Reproductive Tract Infections (RTI). Studies have shown that RTIs are closely interrelated with poor menstrual hygiene and pose grave threats to women’s lives, livelihood, and education. Services for the prevention and treatment of RTI/Sexually Transmitted Infections are integral part of the Reproductive Child Health II Programme (RCH II). With specific reference to ensuring better menstrual health and hygiene for adolescent girls, Government of India is launching this scheme as part of the Adolescent Reproductive Sexual Health (ARSH) in RCH II.

Women with painful periods show increased sensitivity to pain throughout their cycles, even when there is no background period pain.

The brain imaging study carried out at Oxford University shows that period pain is associated with differences in the way the brain processes pain, and that these differences persist throughout a woman’s menstrual cycle.

The findings are published in the journalPain.

The Oxford researchers in the Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and the Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain applied hot pads to the inner arm and abdomen of 12 women with painful periods (but who were otherwise healthy), and 12 women without, while they were in an MRI scanner.

Their brain’s responses to this painful stimulus were compared at three different points in the women’s menstrual cycles.

The team found that the group of women with painful periods were more sensitive to the hot pads – the pads didn’t have to be turned up as far to get the same reports of pain.

The brain imaging data revealed that women who experience period pain showed changes in activity in brain areas known to be involved in the pain response.

Importantly, differences in the way the brain processed the pain from the hot pads continued to be seen at times in their menstrual cycles when there was no period pain. This suggests there may be longer-lasting changes to the experience of pain and discomfort.

These changes in sensitivity and processing of pain are similar to what is seen in patients with chronic pain conditions.

Also in common with chronic pain conditions, the researchers saw significantly lower levels of cortisol, a hormone connected to the body’s stress response. These low levels persisted throughout the women’s menstrual cycles and were correlated with the length of time women had experienced period pain.

The women with painful periods also reported reduced quality of life suggesting the period pain may interfere with physical activity such as sport and work, although this is a small study for identifying such effects.

‘Many of the features of chronic pain conditions are present in women with painful periods, even though the pain is experienced for just a few days every month,’ says Dr Katy Vincent, a clinical lecturer in the Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Oxford University and first author on the paper.

Painful periods are common. Estimates vary, but can they can affect up to 90% of women at some time in their lives and are particularly common among adolescents and young women. According to Dr Vincent, the condition is sometimes taken less seriously because it is so common and it is often considered normal; teenagers in particular don’t always seek treatment.

The researchers argue that because painful periods can measurably affect women’s lives and alter the way they experience pain, the condition should always be given prompt and adequate treatment.

Women’s space in corporate governance has been the focus of many research studies and a crucial agenda for many activist groups. For instance, the European Women’s Professional Network, a non-profit organisation founded in 2002 with over 3,500 corporate members and entrepreneurs, commissions a bi-annual study on gender diversity known as Board Women Monitor.

Further, in the wake of the worldwide financial crisis the board’s accountability has become a subject of public scrutiny.

FOR MORE READING. . .

The child sex ratio has been falling since 1961. It is official now says the preliminary report. The improved overall sex ratio masks a rather worrying fall in the child sex ratio. The fall is greater and dramatic than the anticipation. Will the government at least now wake up to the call of protecting the girl child? The total population of the country is 121 crore, adding more than 18 crore over the last survey in 2001. At this speed of growth, the country’s population could only be stabilising at around 165 crore by 2060.
The Census is the sole data base in the country that the government uses to formulate its policies. The survey comes out with a database on demography, economic activity, literacy and education, housing and household amenities, urbanisation, fertility and mortality, social structure, language, religion and migration.
Disappearance of the girl child is a matter of grave concern today. The population survey reaffirms a fact, which is so disturbing that it has cast a blot on the country. Girls seem to have no place in the so-called country’s growth story.
The data shows that the sex ratio for children below six years has dropped from 927 in 2001 to a dismal 914 girls in 2011 for every 1,000 boys. The gender bias yet again draws attention to a lingering societal flaw that economic policies by the successive governme-nts are not being able to correct. The social bias and mindset have not changed even today.
Improved medical technology, education and improvement in quality of life in the last decade has resulted in the overall gender ratio improving from 933 women for 1,000 men to 940. The female population has risen by 18.1 per cent and has reached 586.5 million.
The lower numbers of young girls across towns and villages in India ‘is very worrying’ and was indicative of the continuing social problem. The director added that the census facts spoke for themselves and provided ample evidence that “nothing has been done of any real substance to save our unborn daughters.”
However, improvement in technology and spawning of mini-vans with sex determination machines chugging across villages has meant that baby girls are more at risk than ever before.The gender imbalance continues despite a ban on sex determination tests based on ultrasound scans and sex selective abortion. It has become a lucrative business for many.
There is wanton disregard for the laws which are against sex determination. The government policies aimed at arresting the declining child sex ratio needed a complete review. Whatever measures that have been put in place over the last 40 years have not had any impact on the ratio.
The only positive here is that Punjab and Haryana, which continue to have among the lowest child sex ratios at 846 and 830 respectively, have improved, up from 798 and 819 during Census 2001.
Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Mizoram and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are the only other states/UTs that have shown an increase in the child sex ratio.
Besides Punjab and Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (899, down from 916), Maharashtra (883, down from 913), Chandigarh (867, down from 845) and Jammu and Kashmir (859) have the most worrisome figures.
Though the southern states, Kerala (959), Andhra Pradesh (943), Karnataka (943), and Tamil Nadu (946), all have stronger sex ratios when compared to the national average of 914, they are worse off when compared to 2001.
This pattern continues although the government has prohibited hospitals from disclosing the gender of an unborn child.
Parents abort female fetuses and murder young female children for financial reasons. Incidents like this occur more frequently in the better educated and the richer Indian states, including Punjab and Gujarat.
Even the Capital city of the country is not free from the bias against the girl child. The date reveals that 821 females per 1000 males in 2001 has increased 866 men in 2011. Though the ratio of the population aged seven years and above has risen from 813 to 866 women in 2011.
Generally the sex ratio is heavily loaded against girls in these states. Take the proportion of children to the larger population, which is the measure of fertility, it has come down. Fertility has declined in all states, but even here, the number of girls has declined more than boys.
The literacy rate has gone up among the total population because the literacy rate of females has gone up because of more awareness. It is not because of government’s intervention only. The improvement in sex ratio is due to the increase in the longevity of women. In the sense that in the absence of a social security net and a proper environment, these people become dependent on others, it increases dependency.
If there is an improvement in the working population sex ratio, it is a good thing. If the improvement is limited to the aged population, it is not a good thing. As of now what we can say is, it reflects that women are living longer, their survival is better.
And their status is improving, sex ratio is going up, female literacy is going up and fertility is declining. National literacy rates have risen almost 10 per cent in the past decade to 74.04 per cent and there are now 50 per cent more literate Indian women than in 2001.
Slower growth of population, fertility decline, literacy increase and increase in the overall sex ratio are the positives. The negatives are the child sex ratio, distressing, and the density of population that has increased by almost 57 people per square km. This is also an area of concern because how much can our environment sustain? How much can our infrastructure sustain? When our next report on urban rural divisions come out, you will find out the extent of strain on urban infrastructure. The quality of life just declines.
Are we really a nation that so hates its female population that, despite being aware of what the absence of women can mean for any society, we continue to kill them even before they are born?
Many parents still prefer to have male children, since men are traditionally the breadwinners in society. Men also perpetuate the family name and having boys relieves families of the expense of providing dowries for girls and protecting their virtue.
Therefore despite laws against pre-natal tests for determining the sex of a child, the practice of aborting female foetuses is still widespread throughout the country, with many parents prepared to pay for illegal abortions carried out by private doctors.
The fact that female foetuses continue to be aborted in significant numbers can clearly be seen in the findings of the latest census. It shows that sex determination continues to be practised robustly and rampantly. As is sex discrimination — girls are given less food, less health care, less education and even less affection. Also, it seems policies for the girl child haven’t done much to improve the situation.
The truth is that a country that so devalues its women does not deserve to pride itself on its economic growth, if it’s a growth built on the mass murder of its girl children

The idea of International Women’s Day was born in the socialist movement in the first decade of the 20th century. Clara Zetkin, socialist leader and head of the Women’s Office of the Social Democratic party in Germany, proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day – to be known as a Women’s Day – to recognise the social contribution of women and to press for their demands. As a socialist and an early (but not self-acknowledged) feminist, Zetkin saw this as part of a broader anti-capitalist movement that would also foster cooperation between women in unions, women’s organizations and socialist parties so they would unite and fight jointly in the class struggle for a more progressive society.

This suggestion was accepted unanimously at the second International conference of Working Women in Copenhagen in 1910, which included over 100 women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women’s clubs, as well as the first three women elected to the parliament in Finland.

The first International Women’s Day (IWD) was honoured in some European countries (Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland) in 1911 on 17 March. Rallies were held involving more than a million people (both women and men), raising demands for women’s right to work and be given equal wages, to vote, to hold public office and to end other forms of discrimination. The Russian revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai described one of these rallies as composed of ”one seething, trembling sea of women… certainly the first show of militancy (in Europe) by working women” (www.leftwrite.wordpress.com). The demands raised at those first demonstrations still resonate today: an end to imperialist wars; better social and economic conditions for women and children; controls on rapidly rising food prices.

In the United States, on 8 March 1908, socialist women and women workers from the clothing and textile trades in the city held a mass meeting for an eight-hour day and women’s suffrage. But less than a week after the first IWD in Europe in 1911, on March 25 the tragic ”Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire” in New York City in the United States led to the deaths of more than 140 working women, mostly recent migrants into the US. This led to greater attention to working conditions and labour legislation for women, in the United States and other developed countries, and these also became important rallying points for the demands made for women on IWD in later years.

The reason that the date was shifted to 8 March is of great relevance for the global women’s movement. In 1917 in Tsarist Russia, Russian women went on strike for “bread and peace”, partly in response to the death over 2 million Russian soldiers in war. The strike began on the last Sunday of February (which was 8 March by the Gregorian calendar used throughout most of the world). The strike continued despite state repression and personal hardship endured by the women. This was the catalyst for – and effectively became the first stage of – the Russian Revolution. Four days later the Tsar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. Ever since, IWD has been celebrated on 8 March not only to press for demands for gender equality, but importantly as recognition of the tremendous power that women can wield when they unite.

The association of IWD with broader struggles of working people has remained a critical part of its essence. The slogan most often used on IWD was ”Class struggle is women’s struggle – women’s struggle is class struggle!” It was therefore very much part of the activities of trade unions and workers’ organizations, who recognised that women’s emancipation cannot occur within a social and economy system that denies the emancipation of workers in general, and vice versa.

But as IWD became more international (taken up by the United Nations in the second half of the 20th century) and even ”official” in scope, this critical link between the emancipation of women and broader economic and social emancipation of all has often been sidelined. This reflects a general tension that unfortunately still remains between feminism and other progressive Left movements – a tension that persists all the more because the Left is the natural and inevitable home of those aspiring to the liberation of women.

Women have been part of the working class since the beginning of capitalism, even when they have not been widely acknowledged as workers in their own right. Even when they are not paid workers, their often unacknowledged and unpaid contribution to social reproduction and to many economic activities is absolutely essential for the functioning of the system.

However, it did take a long time for women’s struggles to be accepted as integral part of working class struggles for a better society. For many decades, even after the first IWD was celebrated to highlight the demands of women, trade unions and other worker organisations tended to be male preserves, based on the ”male breadwinner’ model of the household in which the husband/father worked outside to earn money, while the wife/mother did not earn outside income and handled domestic work.

It has taken prolonged struggle and determined mobilisation to generate greater social recognition of the role of women as wage workers in different forms, as well as to bring out the crucial economic significance of unpaid household labour and community- based work that is dominantly performed by women. Even so, it must be admitted that a major problem for many women activists has been the fundamental inequality in the alliance between feminism and socialism. As noted by Donald Sassoon in his magisterial history of the European Left in the 20th century (”One hundred years of socialism”, The New Press, New York 1996, page 419) ”It was accepted by socialists only on their own terms, namely that the social struggle between capital and labour was to be recognised as fundamental; the emancipation of women as women depended on the victory of the working class.”

Partly this reflected a concern that ”bourgeois” feminism would distract from the critical question of class struggle, which is why even someone like Clara Zetkin could insist that socialist women should avoid co-operating with other feminist groups. But the social reality of the experience of socialist countries in the 20th century has also shown that the breaking of gender stereotypes and domestic division of labour are not necessarily achieved through the dictatorship of the proletariat, even when significant strides are made in gender equality in other ways.

For socialist feminists, this has meant a dual and more complex process of struggle: the need to address and confront the unjust economic order that is expressed in class societies, and the simultaneous need to address and confront the constantly regenerated patterns of gender inequality and subordination that are expressed not just in economic terms but also socially, culturally and politically. The complexity is usually made more intense because of the fact that the second type of struggle involves taking on not only opposing class forces, but also elements within parties, trade unions and other organisations of the Left.

The fact that this second kind of struggle is happening more and more in India and elsewhere may appear to be divisive of Left and progressive movements, but it is actually a sign of great vitality. True emancipation obviously requires a politics that has been shed of its explicit and implicit masculinity, to pave the way for socialism for women and men equally. For that reason alone, it is probably important for socialist men to remember and celebrate International Women’s Day.

Courtesy :  Macroscan.org

The All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) has accused the central government and official agencies of complete failure to take the necessary steps to reverse the trends is reprehensible. It said the Central Supervisory Board, set up to monitor oversee the implementation of the PcPNDT Act, has not held a single meeting over the past three years.  It is only too obvious that corruption and the clout wielded by corrupt members of the medical profession who, unfortunately, are often supported by their associations have rendered the act toothless. The so-called monitoring committees at all levels are dominated by those very people whose activities are to be monitored and activists, experts etc are conspicuous by their absence on these committees. The uncompromising implementation of the act is absolutely essential if the Census 2021 is to show any improvement in the situation.

While social norms and practices need to be drastically altered and social reform movements must be undertaken to do this, the state has the responsibility to ensure the equal economic, and social rights of all women, girls and children along with a violence-free existence for them.  Cascading marriage expenses, skyrocketing dowry demands, unabated violence inside and outside marital and natal homes, along with a host of other factors, are responsible for the ever-growing daughter-abhorrence that we are witnessing.

A year after raising hopes of progressives in the country that heinous crimes such as honour killings would receive the strictest of punishments; those hopes seem to have been belied in a judgement recently in the infamous “Manoj-Babli case”.

On 29^th March 2010, the Karnal session Court sentenced seven who were found guilty in the case involving the murder of two youth in June 2007 – Manoj and Babli belonging to Karora village of Kaithal district, Haryana. Among them five were relatives of Babli and one was found to be the main conspirator, also a prominent Congress leader, Ganga Raj, leader of the notorious Banwala Khap, which was opposed to Manoj and Babli marriage for “belonging to the same gotra”.

The conviction and sentencing was the result of perhaps one of the most glorious and difficult struggles in the history of the women’s movement in India, led and supported by the All India Democratic Womens’ Association. Manoj’s sister, Seema (only 19 when her brother was killed) and his mother, Chanderpatri (a widow) were the first in Haryana to file a case against those involved in an “honour killing”. Amidst life threats, an assassination attempt on Seema and a complete economic and social boycott by the villagers (the latter was led by Ganga Raj himself in the village where he proudly proclaimed the decision to boycott the family in front of the electronic media) the two women stood their ground and continued to valiantly fight the case. Many hoped the Karnal’s sessions court’s verdict would set a precedent for other honour killings and would result in trials for even more guilty people responsible for these crimes. The verdict let the Khaps know that their terror tactics would not go unchallenged.

Yet the acquittal of Ganga Raj by the Chandigarh High Court which also commuted the death sentences of four other convicts seems to have poured water on all high hopes nurtured by progressives wishing to take on these powerful Khap institutions. The details of the verdict on 11^th March 2011 are yet to be carefully studied, but one can’t but react in immense despair and anger. Not only does this embolden the unconstitutional and undemocratic Khap Panchayats in Haryana, but also one wonders if another Seema and Chanderpati in another part of the country would dare to take on the might of Khaps (and/or other such extra constitutional bodies) with all their political backing after such a verdict. Seema’s and Chanderpati’s lives are again under threat. Ganga Raj has been acquitted- a man with big political ambitions and few scruples.

Where do we stand? There is Ganga Raj and the Khaps on the one side, all in a celebratory mood after his release and Seema and Chanderpati on the other. Chanderpati has vowed that the verdict will be challenged in the Supreme Court and true and comprehensive justice would be demanded again for the murdered victims.

Seema and Chanderpati and many other women who’ve been made victims to Haryana’s feudal, casteist and patriarchal traditions need to know that their resistance is supported by many, from within and outside the state. We need to react, our anger needs to be heard. Just a few days post the International Womens’ Day, one could only wish that the resistance is provided solidarity by oppressed women, progressives and democratic minded people all over the country.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) does not maintain district–wise data on trafficking of women and children. However, the latest available State–wise data on   the number of cases registered under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956, from 2007-2010, is given as under:

This information was given by Smt. Krishna Tirath, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Women and Child Development in a written reply to a question in the Rajya

My UNiTE to End Violence Against Women campaign, along with its Network of Men Leaders, is working to end impunity and change mindsets. There is also growing international resolve to punish and prevent sexual aggression in conflict, and to do more to implement the Security Council’s landmark resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, which highlights the importance of involving women in all aspects of building and keeping peace.

Another area where we urgently need to see significant progress is on women’s and children’s health. The September 2010 Summit on the Millennium Development Goals recognized the central importance of this issue, and Member States and the philanthropic community have pledged strong support for my global strategy to save lives and improve the health of women and children over the next four years. In the realm of decision-making, more women, in more countries, are taking their rightful seat in parliament. Yet fewer than 10 per cent of countries have female heads of state or government. Even where women are prominent in politics, they are often severely under-represented in other areas of decision-making, including at the highest levels of business and industry. A recent UN initiative – the Women’s Empowerment Principles, now embraced by more than 130 major corporations – aims to redress this imbalance.

This year’s observance of International Women’s Day focuses on equal access to education, training and science and technology. Cell phones and the Internet, for example, can enable women to improve the health and well-being of their families, take advantage of income-earning opportunities, and protect themselves from exploitation and vulnerability. Access to such tools, backed up by education and training, can help women to break the cycle of poverty, combat injustice and exercise their rights. The launch this year of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women – UN Women – demonstrates our intent to deepen our pursuit of this agenda. Only through women’s full and equal participation in all areas of public  and private life can we hope to achieve the sustainable,

The report, Women’s Representation in Local Government in Asia and the Pacific, quantifies and analyzes for the first time women’s representation at rural, urban, district and provincial levels across the region. It emphasizes that local governments offer one of the most important arenas for women’s political participation and can have a more direct impact on people’s lives and livelihoods than national parliaments. “Women’s representation in local councils is critical. Bold steps are needed to significantly increase the numbers,” said Nicholas Rosellini, UNDP Deputy Regional Director for Asia‐Pacific. “For most poor people in Asia‐Pacific, local governments are the most important political arena. They also have an important role in encouraging women’s political participation.”

More emphasis must be placed on having women elected into leadership positions, according to the report. Across the different levels of sub‐national government it is the countries with quotas such as Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, or other affirmative action policies such as Viet Nam which have the largest [rates of women’s representation. However this does not translate into women’s election to leadership positions such as council chairs or heads.

“Women’s active participation makes politics civilized and violence free,” says Rashadea Akhter, Vice Chair in Chouddygram Upazila Parishad (district council) in Comilla, Bangladesh. One of the main obstacles to women’s representation is the process of candidate selection in political parties. Women find it more difficult to be nominated as candidates in political parties where offices are traditionally held by men, says the report. In the Pacific, which has one of the lowest percentages of women in national politics of any region in the world, customary notions about women’s role in society may be the biggest impediment to their political participation. Representation of women in politics at the national level has made slight progress since commitments were made by most governments at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 to achieve an international target of 30 percent. Then global representation of women in parliament was only around 11 percent, while in 2009 that number had shifted to 18.4 percent. In Asia and the Pacific the picture is even worse, with Asia (18.2 percent) and the Pacific (15.2 percent) ranking as the second and third worst regions for women’s representation in parliament in the world.

At the rural council level, the percentage of women elected has a wide distribution. India leads at more than 35 percent, Pakistan just over 30 percent and Bangladesh at nearly 25 percent, while Tuvalu, Kiribati, Vanuatu and Tonga all have less than 10 percent of women elected at the rural council level. Sri Lanka has the second lowest representation recorded at just 1.6 percent. Despite the relatively high percentages of women representatives in rural councils in Bangladesh and Pakistan, both countries show some of the lowest percentages of women as heads of rural councils with only 0.17 percent and 0.36 percent respectively.

The highest levels of women’s representation in urban councils were China, 48.2 percent, Australia, 24.65 percent, Bangladesh, 28.4 percent and the Republic of Korea, 21.78 percent. However, with the exception of Australia (21.6 percent) and Philippines (20.5 percent) women are unlikely to be elected into leadership positions. Bangladesh has only 1.37 percent of women elected to these higher positions.

The report notes that there is a general lack of data on women at the lowest levels of sub‐national government up to the district level. Where countries have district councils and data is available there is overall a better rate of women’s representation than in rural and urban councils. Bangladesh, India and

Pakistan all have women’s representation of over 30 percent with quotas, while Viet Nam has affirmative action policies in place and a women’s representation rate of 23 percent. The exception is Mongolia, which despite a lack of quotas and a national women’s representation in Parliament rate of 3.9 percent has elected 28.4 percent of its intermediary or district representatives as women.

Provincial and regional assemblies are the highest tier of sub‐national government, and out of the countries in the Asia Pacific with this level of representation Afghanistan (30 percent), Australia (27.8 percent), India (37 percent), New Zealand (29.4 percent) and Viet Nam (23.88 percent) have the highest levels of women’s representation. Compared to the other levels of sub‐national government, provincial and regional assemblies have a larger number of women at senior positions within elected bodies. Afghanistan has 15 percent. However, apart from the Philippines (19.8 percent) and New Zealand (16 percent) women at leadership levels in elected sub‐national bodies still languishes below 10 percent with the Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka and Indonesia having zero women as heads of chairs of provincial and regional assemblies. The report notes that sub‐national governments on average in Asia and the Pacific have a higher representation of women in elected and appointed decision‐making positions than at the national level. The Status Report is published jointly by UNDP, UN Women, United Cities

Annexure

1. Scheme of Building Grants, including Studio Theatres.

2. Financial Assistance for Development of Buddhist/Tibetan Culture and Art.

3. Financial Assistance for celebration of Centenaries/Anniversaries of important Personalities.

4. Scheme for Financial Assistance for setting up of Multipurpose Complex including those for Children.

5. Financial Assistance for Promotion and Strengthening of Regional and Local Museums.

6. Grant-in-aid to Voluntary Organizations/ Societies for Development and Maintenance of National Memorials.

7. Financial Assistance to persons distinguished in letters, arts and other walks of life who may be in indigent circumstances and their dependants.

8. Scheme of Financial Assistance to Professional Groups and Individuals engaged for specified Performing Arts Projects”. The scheme has two parts:

1. Salary Grants assistance for performing arts groups, to help them establish themselves in their field.

2. Production Grant to be given for approved projects and programmes in these areas.

9. Scheme for Scholarships to Young Artists in different Cultural Fields.

10. Scheme of financial assistance for seminars, festivals and exhibitions on cultural subjects by not-for-profit organizations (Cultural Functions Grant Scheme).

11. Tagore National Fellowship for Cultural Research.

12. Tagore Commemoration Grant Scheme (TCGS).

13. Financial Assistance for Preservation and Development of Cultural Heritage of Himalayas.

14. Scheme for Award of Fellowships to Outstanding Persons in the field of Culture.

Empowered women and girls have a truly transformative role to play in all our societies, with benefits for all. Around the world, healthy, educated, employed, and empowered women break poverty cycles – not only for themselves, but for their families, communities, and countries too. This year, International Women’s Day highlights the participation of women and girls in education, training, science and technology. It also focuses our attention on the promotion of women’s equal access to full employment and decent work.

Advances are being made in many areas, but no yet fast enough. For example, less than 10 percent of countries have women heads of state or government, and only 19 percent of the world’s parliamentarians are women.

While more women than ever before are participating in the work force, almost two-thirds of women in the developing world work in the informal economy without labour rights and social protection. Globally, women are more likely to be jobless, and to have borne the worst setbacks of the economic crisis.

Although the gender gap in education is closing, there are wide differences within and across countries. More than 30 million girls around the world are missing out on education. Yet educated women and girls have more choices, are able to have higher living standards, are more likely to seek medical care during pregnancy, and ensure that their children are vaccinated and better nourished. Those children are then more likely to go to school and carry on the benefits of education to their communities and future generations. Investing in women and girls is crucial for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This was a key message in UNDP’s International Assessment of what it will take to achieve the MDGs.

From huge national projects to smaller-scale initiatives, UNDP works to support countries to reduce gender inequalities and improve the lives of women. For example, in El Salvador, a country with one of the highest murder rates of women, UNDP and sister UN agencies worked with women parliamentarians to support the passage of a groundbreaking Bill to address violence against women. In Lebanon, more than 40 women’s co-operatives have formed across the country to revitalize communities which were economically devastated by conflict.

The United Nations’ commitment to investing in women and girls is absolute and resolute. With the creation of UN Women, the UN has an organization devoted to advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment. UN Women, working together with the UN country teams around the world, will play a vital role in promoting and achieving gender equality, and UNDP is committed to a strong partnership with UN Women to this end.